


What She Left in Konoha

by Cacoethic



Category: Naruto
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/M, Female Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Miscarriage, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-12
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:02:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22227592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cacoethic/pseuds/Cacoethic
Summary: Without her daughter, without her husband, she was less than a shell. Empty. // Sakura is forced to pick up the pieces, alone, after a miscarriage and the possibility of infertility ends her marriage with Sasuke. Her journey takes her to Suna, where she learns nothing in life is what it seemed when she was a child.
Relationships: Gaara/Haruno Sakura, Past Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke - Relationship
Comments: 40
Kudos: 272





	1. Empty

**Author's Note:**

> This fic graphically discusses a miscarriage and the emotional fallout thereafter, including a hint of suicidal ideation. Please be safe and do not read if either of those is a trigger for you.

After an eternity of trying, she had finally managed to develop their baby inside of her. The dog days of summer had been in full force for an entire month after Naruto and Hinata’s pregnancy announcement when Sakura found herself and her husband hastily making one of their own. Sasuke, who no longer bothered to stroke her spine as she wept over each and every failed test, instantly began to rain affection down on every part of her body. When he'd put his ear to her belly, far too early to hear or feel much of anything, Sakura told herself it meant he’d be a good father.

A blood test was performed as early as possible, right as Sakura hit the ten-week mark and before she felt fully mentally prepared. Personal feelings aside, the test naturally went on at the behest of her loving husband. The baby seemed perfectly healthy, with no detectable risk of genetic disease or defect. The doctors could say with almost complete confidence that she had a healthy little girl growing inside of her. Sasuke smiled in an unusual way, a thin line barely quirked at one end. Sakura looked right through him with a smile of her own, trying in vain to dismiss the concerns creeping in like static at the back of her scalp.

Less than a week later her lover was back to his newfound self, pulling her into hugs at random and kissing up and down her neck in a show of care he’d never entertain the thought of displaying pre-pregnancy. “What if the next one’s a boy?” he asked with a grin, undeterred by the look of shock that must’ve crossed her face. “Better yet, what if you have twins?” As he crouched down to kiss her stomach, Sakura considered asking what exactly was wrong with the child that was real and inside of her right at that moment. Was their little girl not enough as she was now? He rose from the crouch and hugged her tenderly, once more wiping the slate clean of his indiscretions.

The blood test had been okay. The baby's development was on track. In the weeks that followed, however, she could no longer deny that something felt wrong; as a practicing medic, she should have seen the signs much sooner. It was difficult to point to a time, in hindsight, where things had felt right. Everything was definitely fine, her baby was undoubtedly healthy, but Sasuke would have a nervous breakdown if he suspected something was wrong. Though he made it clear he thought of himself as the stronger of the pair, she couldn’t stamp out her desire to protect him. An ache in her stomach grew and grew until she found herself sneaking out in the middle of the night in a rush to visit the hospital. Sakura entered the hospital not long after midnight, alone and coated in sweat.

Inside the building, shuttered in a private room with a single doctor in attendance, she got the news. The sharp cramps in her abdomen were not merely her insides rearranging themselves – they were her baby rapidly wilting away. By the time she allowed herself to admit there was a problem and seek help it was far too late; maybe it had always been too late. In the absence of her husband, weighed down by a blanket of agony so thick she could feel no sensations but the beating of her own heart, the doctor explained the miscarriage was incomplete. Her lifeless baby was trapped inside of her and they’d need to help her remove it.

“Get Ino,” Sakura begged, confident she’d rush in with the sense to keep it from Sasuke. The doctor assisting was an acquaintance of hers, one who understood exactly why she’d come by herself; it wasn't exactly as though Sasuke had made his desire for an heir secret from the entire village. He nodded as though she’d barked an order rather than a plea and stepped out of the room. There should’ve been a nurse there with her. There should have been anyone there at all with her but instead, due to an oversight in which no one expected the Uchiha heir to die before her life even began, Sakura agonized alone.

Alone until Ino burst through the door in scrubs with her hair pulled back into a frenzied bun. In an instant Ino was on her, crying and hugging her in a way wholly unique to the blonde. She’d arrived and been debriefed remarkably quickly – it dawned on Sakura that her best friend had likely already been at the hospital, pulling a night shift. Said best friend’s appearance that night was a blessing amongst a thousand curses that were stringing themselves together to ultimately change the course of Sakura’s entire life.

At twelve weeks, light spotting is nothing out of the ordinary. Sakura stared listlessly into the light above her as they probed her arm for just the right spot to insert a needle, still numb. She couldn’t help but reflect on what her doctor had told her just over a week prior. At twelve weeks her baby bump was just barely visible, though her daughter was so small she could fit in the palm of Sakura’s open hand. Terror seized her as the sedative set in and a nurse in scrubs shooed Ino to the side. She briefly considered begging them to stop on the off chance there was even a possibility of carrying her daughter to term. The words never left her lips; there would be no miracles tonight.

She registered Ino squeezing her hand and barely listened to the supportive words her friend whispered urgently in her ear as she drifted out of consciousness. At twelve weeks Sakura lost her first child without cause or explanation, ripped from her uterus in a clinical fashion with her best friend gripping her hand like a lifeline.

Time escaped her until Sasuke arrived within an hour of the emergency procedure. His presence filled the room as soon as he stepped in, the beeping of monitors and steps of night nurses fading into the background in favour of the swish of his cloak. He’d sought her out like a homing missile, undoubtedly tricking a clueless receptionist into giving away her location before she had time to recover and get her story straight. Ino excused herself at Sakura’s request but not without first baring her teeth at the Uchiha male. 

“We can try again,” Sasuke said while gently holding her hand, wiping some sweat from her brow and smiling at her like he really did believe it. He’d offered no sympathies for the child they’d just lost and seemed almost relieved at the prospect of having another shot. In her current state, the brush of his hand on hers offered more hurt than comfort. Sakura sat up without support to gain some sort of upper hand in the situation, struggling to supply her lungs with enough air to speak.

“I don’t think we can,” she choked out between dry sobs. “The doctor said… given the amount of time it took us to conceive and the belated nature of the miscarriage…” her voice caught in her throat and finally the tears began. Sasuke waited attentively, patting her hand but setting his jaw. “I don’t think we’ll ever be able to have a baby.”

At this he stood, moving towards the window and away from the sight of her. She regretted sending Ino away now, cursed herself for thinking her husband would be sympathetic to her plight. How had she been so blind for so long? Sasuke viewed her not as a woman on equal footing but as a baby-making machine, one that was now completely broken. She couldn’t stop a sob from escaping before making every effort to compose herself once again. Tears were just one more thing he could look down on her for.

Once she’d stopped crying the Uchiha turned to look at her, examining her from top to bottom in an appraising manner. “I can't do that, Sakura,” he said her name for what felt like the first time in eons, ditching the pet names she’d quickly grown accustomed to. “You know I can’t live like that.” There was a finality to his words supported by the silence in his wake as he left her alone for likely the last time.

Watching his back as he exited the room, powerless to follow him, Sakura experienced the first of many occasions of hollowness. Her insides had been emptied out, in every sense of the word. Without her daughter, without her husband, she was less than a shell. Empty.

Ino appeared as quickly as he disappeared, filling the space he left to the best of her abilities. Sakura couldn’t stand to be touched, begged Ino to stay by her side with her hands to herself as they contemplated the next steps to be taken. Sasuke was mostly certainly not coming back, of that she had no illusions. It would come as no surprise if he was working with some kind of 24/7 lawyer to draft up a divorce agreement before she could even lift herself out of bed. It would be easy to divorce her: they had no joint assets save the roof over their head, no money or items in need of splitting and of course no child to argue over custody for. As absurd this scenario seemed at the time, Sakura had a good enough head on her shoulders to see the end when it was upon her. She had to return to their home at some point, after all, to pick up whatever pieces of her life remained where she’d left them only hours before.

When she arrived with Ino at the Uchiha compound early that morning she found Sasuke with a telltale stack of papers. Though they’d both been expecting it, both had been planning for it, the shock of seeing him in the flesh with an agreement already drawn up nearly sent Sakura into shock. It wasn’t until Ino lunged at him that the silence broke. “You bastard,” Ino cried out righteously as he dodged her blind fury with ease. 

Sakura could only watch on as Sasuke humoured Ino in the distance. The blonde displayed a rage Sakura wished she could summon, wished she could feel much of anything at the moment. The world was muted in colour and sound, slower motion than normal and devoid of any strong emotion. The papers Sasuke had easily produced, obviously drafted before the current situation, made their way into her trembling hands in between blows. 

Sakura left without looking back, Ino returning to her side triumphantly, a trickle of blood gracing the knuckles of her clenched fist. They’d let the lawyers work out the details, Ino reassured her, but at least she’d gotten in one good hit.

Before anyone could opt to decide her fate for her, Sakura relieved Ino of pity party duty and marched alone to the Hokage’s office as the sun reached its peak to take a good hard look at her other old teammate. It was apparent from the look on his face that he knew what had happened, but hadn’t yet coached himself on how to react. “Give me the longest mission out of here,” she demanded, not giving him a chance to compose himself. When he remained frozen she continued: “preferably as far away as possible.”

When he did move, it was not to search for a mission or hide under his desk from the clearly impending meltdown but rather to grab her and pull her into a back-breaking hug. “I’m so sorry, Sakura,” he said as though he was feeling the same pain. She supposed one of them needed to feel emotions, given she now couldn’t bring herself to even cry after losing her home, her little girl and the man she’d pined after since she was a child. Finding her unreceptive to the hug, Naruto released his grip and searched her eyes for something fruitlessly before returning to his desk. He meant well, loved her like a sister, but his pity was unnerving and she found herself unwilling to tolerate it any longer.

“This is a bit lower level than I think a medic of your stature would be qualified for… and there’s the subject matter too…” Naruto spoke to the file he pulled rather than Sakura’s haggard figure. She approached his desk and forcefully plucked it from his hand, glazing over at the words ‘orphanage’ and ‘caretaker’ before feeling herself falter.

“Naruto,” he shrunk back when she finally spoke. “You are aware of why Sasuke threw me out, correct?” A tentative nod was her only answer from the blonde.

“Hina thought it was a bad idea at first but then she ended up convincing me it might actually be good for you. I know despite everything you do love children, and this mission will take you to Suna with an undetermined end date. Besides, the pediatric aspect is just a small portion of the assignment. You would also be helping out as a regular medic at Suna’s hospital.” 

“Hinata knows?” the question was a whisper, a final warning sign for a storm that had been brewing in the Hokage office since she arrived at its door. Not only was her desire to escape so predictable that Hinata and Naruto had had a little chat about missions to take her out of Konoha, her deepest secret had spread overnight to places she hadn’t even considered.

“Well she’s… my wife,” Naruto was sheepish but surprisingly unapologetic, hand darting behind his head in an attempt at bashfulness. “I thought she might understand. You know she loves my friends like her own, Sakura, and I thought she might have some good advice. I’m sorry for not asking first,” his tone betrayed that he was only sorry Sakura found him out. With a baby on the way himself, she knew both he and Hinata must understand her pain in some capacity; this knowledge did nothing to help soothe her. He reached out for her to return the file. 

The thought of all of the people who would incidentally find out about what happened to her in the coming days tightened her grip on the assignment. Just as Naruto and Hinata had done, she and Sasuke hardly waited to share their good news after the first positive pregnancy test came back. It had never occurred to her to wait and see how things would pan out. She’d never planned for the possibility that her daughter wouldn’t be in her arms by next summer. Shikamaru, Sai, Tenten, Chouji, even the old man at the ramen stand would soon be falling over themselves to avoid saying anything awkward in her presence. She’d have to find a new home or at least a new place to sleep, alone. Sakura clutched the file closer still before declaring she was taking the mission and turning heel out the door.

In less than 24 hours her entire life had been turned upside-down. Naruto followed her out the door, all the way to the Uchiha compound where she gathered her things. Blessedly Sasuke was nowhere to be found, though it begged the question of what exactly he was doing. She forced herself to think of anything and everything else, including Naruto’s palpable nervousness as he mentally prepared himself for an encounter with their former teammate. The covers on her side of the bed were no longer disturbed as she left them the night before, but instead had been neatly made as if to erase any trace of her at all. She gathered up clothes and medical supplies before she felt anything at all, before any sort of emotion began to rear its head.

In her rush to escape the compound unscathed, she nearly left behind something rather precious. In the closet, tucked away in a corner as if Sasuke forgot they were even there, she uncovered a pair of tiny pink baby shoes. Her doting husband had bought them shortly after the blood test, as if conceding that they would have just one little girl and that was quite alright with him. She’d treasured the shoes, an absurd gift given the early nature of the pregnancy but yet another indicator she took to mean he’d be an excellent father. Flipping the right shoe over, the inscription Sarada was barely legible - a hint of the name they’d picked for a child that would never materialize.

Naruto was standing guard at the entrance when she exploded, in a swift motion destroying their marital bed and everything in a five-foot radius. He came rushing in to stop her from further increasing the chances the Uchiha heir would arrive, but she had already stopped herself. A single tear etched its way down her otherwise unmovable features before she slowly tucked the small shoes into her pack and walked past him out the door. “I’m leaving for Suna tomorrow,” she gave a reason for her hurry beyond simply trying to avoid any consequences of her outburst. “Gotta find Kakashi. Say goodbye to my parents and all.”

Though Tsunade had been her mentor for much of her (brief) adult life, their goodbye was short and sweet. Tsunade was filled with such a righteous rage on her behalf that she almost felt guilty for not being able to work up more feelings. Sakura’s own rage and devastation bubbled just under the surface, ready to boil over but never quite hitting the right point. Tsunade promised to visit, and given her propensity to go just about anywhere in search of a good time Sakura had no difficulty believing it was true. Ino promised to visit as well, tearfully gripping her back in a tight hug that hinted otherwise. It was all the same, really, as Sakura wanted more than anything to go somewhere where she’d be moderately incognito.

Finding Kakashi was easy, given he spent a decent chunk of time in the same place. Even after the end of the war, he mourned his old friends in much the same way. It appeared that he was the only one in Konoha that had not heard the events of the night before – or he was utilizing his excellent ability to lie, to his former student no less. Sakura filled him in succinctly and neutrally, dreading coming off as a vengeful spouse especially considering Kakashi’s relationship with herself and Sasuke.

“Sasuke and I have reached a mutual agreement to divorce,” she said plainly to his back, knowing he’d sensed her approaching. She expected shock, the quirk of an eyebrow or a subtle shift backwards. Instead she watched him nod calmly before turning to face her. She’d learned over the years to read his expressions from only his eyes, but came up empty this time. “I will… be going on a mission to Suna. For awhile,” she stopped herself from talking just to fill the silence and hoped he would take a hint.

“He’s a bastard, Sakura,” Kakashi rose from sitting on the ground and pulled her into what she hoped would be the one of the last hugs of the day. “I never helped you reach your full potential, and it’s because I was fawning over that asshole,” his eyes betrayed a wince as he pulled back from her. At this she laughed, knowing she could not fault her old teacher for fawning over Sasuke in a much more mature and appropriate fashion than she had. Like all those before him that day, Kakashi pulled back and sized her up. Her whisper of a baby bump was still present and he did not, perhaps could not, hide his curiosity.

“I lost the baby,” again she hoped brevity would prevent her from seeming bitter or jilted. Kakashi was at a loss for words, obviously hoping to comfort her but not having the slightest idea of how. “It’s okay! But I need to go away for awhile,” a forced smile made its way to her face though she knew she couldn’t fool him-- another entry in the series of many futile attempts to seem Just Fine. She planted a chaste kiss on his cheek before turning tail and running away for the millionth time that day. In the back of her mind she traced his lone figure, still standing facing her as she disappeared amongst the buildings of Konoha proper on the way to her parents house.

When night fell, the weight of all that had happened fell squarely on her shoulders. She had taken up residence in her old bedroom, filling in her parents with as much detail as she could muster. Her father grit his teeth as tears silently spilled down her mother’s cheeks, the two of them at once glad to be rid of the Uchiha they’d never trusted and too sick with grief to gloat in their righteousness. Gone from the evening was the expected “I told you so” they’d been waiting years to dole out. Instead, they settled on either side of her and held her until all emotions had been exhausted. As she headed to bed, her father reassured her she was welcome to stay as long as she’d like; alas, the idea of a divorcee in her early 20s crashing at her parents place just a hop and a skip away from her ex-husband’s literal compound was unfortunately too bitter a pill to swallow.

After a brief look through the papers he’d served her, she found they were much like her own. Knowing Sasuke wouldn’t sign anything she’d given him when he had his own document drawn up so readily, she resolved to sign and be done with him. The terms were clear, a clean split with him retaining full ownership of the matrimonial home and her receiving a lump sum of half of the value. There would be no suing for emotional damages, though she briefly wondered just how much that would cost him. It wasn’t like she needed the money anyway – she always travelled light.

And travel she did. The next morning, Ino delivered a magnificent and tearful goodbye as Sakura slung a sack on her shoulder and headed to the Hokage’s office. It was a miracle Naruto was awake at that hour, though she heavily suspected his wife had everything to do with it. Surprisingly Shikamaru was there as well, looking up at the ceiling with a yawn and no attempt to disguise his opinion on the current state of affairs. Troublesome.

“Shikamaru will be coming along,” Naruto nodded in the other man’s direction and Shikamaru stood a bit more upright. “He’ll be visiting Suna on… personal matters.” At this Shikamaru grinned, then rolled his eyes.

“Remember Temari? With the blonde spiky hair and phenomenal chest?” Sakura didn’t bother addressing the last part but instead nodded tentatively. “We’re doing a dating thing, I guess,” he said before shrugging his shoulders and heading out the door impatiently. It appeared he’d received the memo to not say a single god damned thing about that stupid Uchiha bastard, courtesy of Ino. Naruto rose from his desk and pulled Sakura into another hug, this one more natural and gentle than the one only a day before. Her pain showed no signs of subsiding but this display of affection softened the edges of the ever-present dull ache in her chest.

The journey was more difficult than she anticipated. Her insides still felt wrong and she was horrified to discover some minor spotting in her underwear on the first night of their journey. They were taking things slowly, no fear of war to light a fire under their feet, the two of them hardly speaking as they passed through town after town until civilization seemed to end and they entered the desert proper. It was obvious Shikamaru did not know how to handle her in any capacity but mercifully knew when to shut up and allow silence to fill in the space around them. He slowed to accommodate her mutilated body without being asked, rendering talking unnecessary and often unwanted. 

Adrenaline and shock combined and prevented the emotional dam-breaking she (and Shikamaru) had undoubtedly expected along the way. Upon finding that smear of blood in her underwear she simply wondered if perhaps she was now dying, contemplated telling Shikamaru to leave her behind in the desert as he raced onwards to meet his lover. It didn’t feel particularly grim and it wasn’t as though she wanted to kill herself. She found after another sleepless night of soul searching, in the wee hours of the morning before they arrived at Suna’s gates, that perhaps being dead wouldn’t be so bad after all. The thought was shameless and indulgent and she dared not to share it with Shikamaru, who was liable to throttle her for such talk after the death of Asuma and countless others during the war.

They were greeted at the gates by Temari, who flung herself into Shikamaru’s arms while he looked sideways with partially-contrived embarrassment. Sakura smiled weakly, placatingly, before heading into Suna alone, eager to find her lodging and lie down for the next year or so. Several paces back from his sister, even further now that she’d bolted forward to greet Shikamaru, was Kankuro standing idly by. She knew, watching him nod upon her approach, that he’d been sent to collect her. She didn’t know how much exactly he knew about her circumstances, though she recalled his attendance at her wedding a year prior and assumed he would put two and two together as she arrived at Suna’s gates utterly alone on a mission with no set return date. The details of the matter would come out later, hopefully only after she was ready to divulge them.

She followed Kankuro wordlessly through the city as he pointed out shops he imagined she would soon be frequenting. In turn she was introduced to the bakery on the corner that had ‘just fantastic pastries’, an art supply shop he used for body paint which wasn’t really in her wheelhouse, a jewelry store with a beautiful and expensive-looking display, and a quaint open-air market hawking foods she’d never tasted, seen or even heard of… finally they arrived at the Kazekage’s personal quarters, an impressive building attached to the much larger Kazekage’s office. Kankuro barged through the doors as Sakura paced decidedly behind him. The entryway was quaint but gave way to a large sitting room that was, at the time, completely vacant. Sakura didn’t speak for fear her words would echo throughout the entire chamber.

“Gaara?” Kankuro called out, a bit smaller than a shout but by no means an indoor voice. There was no echo and no reply. Kankuro gestured for his pink-haired guest to be seated. Not one for arguing, she sunk into one of the many couches in the center of the room and felt exhaustion set in with a finality. Her guide promptly abandoned her to vanish up a prominent spiral staircase in search of the one who was ultimately hosting her. When Gaara finally did appear she could hardly bring herself to stand and greet him. He seemed to understand and opted to, curiously enough, bow to her.

“I’m so grateful you have come,” he spoke with the air of someone in charge. She’d met with Gaara many times since their teens, when he nearly murdered her, but never in an official capacity and always with Naruto close at hand. “We have been severely understaffed at the orphanage and someone with medical experience as extensive as yourself will be an invaluable resource.”

“We?” Sakura dared to inquire, knowing she shouldn’t but unable to stop herself. The Kage towered over her and she thought of standing but it would no doubt appear argumentative at this point. Only now was she able to take in his appearance, his hair still a shock of red and his eyes a rush of seafoam. He opened his mouth as though to speak before closing it and being promptly interrupted by his brother, who she’d forgotten was even in attendance.

“Gaara is very involved in the orphanage,” Kankuro bragged eagerly. “Suna’s children are all very well taken care of,” he posited as though to imply that was not the case in Konoha. Choosing to let the imagined (or real?) jab go, she brought her attention from the older man back to Gaara. He wasn’t particularly tall and a blush graced his face that made him appear even smaller. Kankuro elbowed him in the ribs affectionately and Sakura recalled a time not that long ago when they were all much younger and the sand sibling would have been killed at that kind of contact.

Instead of dwelling on the past she rose up and nodded to them both. “That’s wonderful to hear. I’m excited to start work here, but the journey here has really worn me out. Where will I be staying while I’m here?”

“I’ve prepared a suite in the guest quarters for you,” he replied. When Gaara spoke the room listened. She found herself drawn to him, possibly because this was the longest conversation they’d ever had, possibly because he was the Kazekage, but more than likely because she’d just learned that not only was he a beautiful man he was compassionate. The stark contrast of her memories of a hopelessly violent teenager to the calm, grown man standing before her now echoed her own transition into adulthood. He seemed to have skipped the young-marriage-young-divorce stage and transformed into a fully fledged emotionally mature adult while she was out ruining her own life in Konoha. Her thoughts couldn’t stray for long, as Gaara continued to speak. “I hope that’s alright. You are welcome to stay here for as long as needed. As you adjust to the city you may choose to live elsewhere, like the complex by the hospital or even the orphanage itself.”

She nodded in a way that hopefully concealed her distaste at that final suggestion and he promptly turned heel, presumably to show her the room. She allowed herself to be led once again into a long hallway off the main sitting room and nearly crashed right into his back as he halted in a doorway. The bedroom within was perfectly pleasant and in a fairly private area in a hallway off the main sitting room. A small bed, which paled in comparison to the one she’d destroyed a few days prior, was pushed up against the wall to accommodate a desk with a chair beneath a large windowsill. “I’ve been told it gets cold at night,” Gaara explained as she peered into the room with him. October was upon them, but it hardly got cold in Konoha and she imagined it would be much the same here. “Please let me know if you would like to request any additional blankets.” Sakura took note of the bedding and hoped it would be enough -- the idea of asking the Kazekage for an extra blanket was daunting. Hoping again her expression did not betray her, she nodded and squeezed past him to throw her bag on the floor. He moved back wordlessly, as though their proximity had alarmed him in some way, and gestured to the doorway right across the hall that clearly housed a bathroom with a generous tub. “You are the only guest in this wing. I hope you find it comfortable. I will show you the orphanage tomorrow morning.”

After the stilted half-conversation, he once again turned around abruptly and headed off. When she peered through the doorway out into the hall, neither he nor Kankuro was anywhere to be found. 

How are you Sakura?  
Oh, I’m doing just great Gaara. It’s great to see you. What have you been up to?

It wasn’t as though Sakura expected a welcome party or an in-depth meeting with her host, especially given her knowledge of Gaara’s antisocial tendencies, but having some sort of dialogue would have been nice. She wrote his behaviour off as giving her space and tried exceedingly hard not to dwell on his lack of social graces or the thought of those seafoam eyes studying her so carefully moments before.

She contemplated catching up with Shikamaru and making sure he knew where she was staying but instead opted to enter the bathroom and scrub every inch of her body. Dirt and grime circled down the drain, satisfying even as a trail of blood flowed out of her to follow. She looked at it impassively, closing her eyes when it got to be too much and turning off the faucet when she realized she could not manage to get any cleaner. Some things would simply stick with her, she contemplated poetically as she dried her pink hair and headed across the hall to “her” room.

Closing the door to the room gave her a new perspective. Along the entry wall was a small closet where she promptly dumped out and sorted her clean clothes before dressing herself and exploring her new digs. The large window beside her looked out on the city, into another small, open marketplace that Kankuro hadn’t lead her through. There were curtains for privacy but when she drew them back to look outside, several small succulents appeared on the windowsill. Who took care of them? Did they need much care at all? How a plant could grow tucked away in a rarely-used room in the middle of a desert town at all perplexed her. She made a note to ask someone, maybe Gaara, but was intimidated by the very thought.

Sakura plopped down on the neatly made bed, refusing to unpack anything aside from those few outfits she’d brought. It wasn’t as though she was afraid of Gaara. She’d certainly been afraid when he nearly killed her back before the war fully broke out, but they were past that now. He’d apologized years ago, in a quiet moment at an outrageous birthday party for Naruto that had also served to strengthen the bond between the two nations. She hadn’t been sure how to answer him then and could hardly remember how she’d answered now. But there was no bad blood between them, and he’d looked at her in the sitting room as a curiosity rather than a nuisance or annoyance. She had, after all, come to help him -- come to help Suna. Putting aside that her good deed was entirely selfishly motivated, she hoped to be a positive force for the town that had so far accepted her without a fuss.

Tomorrow she’d have to wake up, plaster a pleasant expression on her face, and go meet potentially dozens of children without loving parents. She’d hardly read the brief, and took the opportunity to do so in the quiet and safety of her designated chambers. The file Naruto handed her contained names and pictures of many of the children alongside descriptions of their behaviour and various illnesses. She was coming to replace an elderly physician who had passed away, entering in the wake of mourning children to become their pillar of stability.

Suna had been looking for a replacement for months to no avail, which meant the orphanage had been a revolving door of temporary workers staying only a short while. In the fine print there was talk of certain workers being chased out, accused of neglecting their responsibilities or treating the children too harshly. This particular building, the one she was supposedly welcome to stay in if she survived the introduction, housed children from 6 years old all the way up to 18. It looked as if there were only a few dozen inhabitants, mostly in the younger range; many moved out on their own as they hit 12 or 13 to join their ninja teammates on a regular basis. The younger age range would make things harder. Sakura was in her early 20s, allowing her to see older teens more as peers and less as children. A toddler with black hair could very well set something inside of her off, but she wouldn’t know until she was faced with said imaginary child. It would undoubtedly be a long day.

For now, she threw back the covers on the bed and fell into a deep sleep until just before Gaara himself came knocking on her door.

Sunlight streamed through a gap in the blinds Sakura had lazily closed the night before. Gaara entered after a few knocks, seemingly unaware that one does not barge into a room until they are sure the occupant is awake and fully dressed. She was both, miraculously, unscathed by the chill of the night but suffering from a rather dry mouth and a poor attitude. “Good morning,” she answered his silence with sarcasm, which he didn’t seem to notice.

“Can you be ready in an hour?” he asked sheepishly after a beat of silence, as if only then realizing the extent of his faux pas. Not one for breakfast and beyond well rested after who knew how many hours of sleep, she nodded warily.

“I’m ready now… if you are,” timidity crept into her voice, unbecoming of a medic of her caliber. Something about the Kage made her nervous, as though he could change at any moment and revert to who he was before. Struggling to reconcile the fact that he had apologized and she had accepted it with her involuntary nervousness in his presence, Sakura searched his face for some hint of his true self and instead watched as he nodded and left the room.

“You have a nasty habit,” Sakura forced herself to say as she chased after him, smoothing her hair down and praying she looked half-decent without checking in the bathroom mirror. He seemed surprised at her ire and slowed to meet her pace. “You turn around and leave before anyone can follow what you’re thinking or where you’re going!” The once-feisty woman felt as though she was mimicking her past self, pretending to feel insulted as she would have before to keep up appearances. If he noticed, which he wouldn’t, he didn’t point it out.

“No one’s told me that before,” eventually came the redhead’s reply. She glanced at him sideways long enough to catch the genuine surprise marking his features. It wasn’t hard to believe he’d never been scolded before, or at least not in a very long time. Rather than point out that he was the damn Kazekage and of course no one would speak to him with disrespect in the manner she just had, she closed her mouth and followed alongside him wordlessly.

They arrived at the orphanage after all of the children seemed to be awake and about. Sakura’s stomach dropped and she steeled herself to enter the doorway and be okay, be more than okay. The first realization she came to was that every child in the entire complex loved Gaara. The mere word that he was inside the building brought kids out of the woodwork, emerging from the playground outside and overflowing from doorways to tug at his clothes.

Sakura found herself mostly ignored by the torrent of children that flocked to their Kage. Small miracle. Shockingly she was preoccupied not by the tiny hands and feet all around her, clamouring for attention and affection, but by the ease with which Gaara smiled down at them. He tousled messy hair on a young boy’s head and called out the name of a child hiding in the doorframe, beckoning her to join him. The little girl, with black hair pulled back into pigtails, hesitated before joining those around her and barrelling into Gaara’s open arms. The scene caused a more visceral reaction than she’d prepared for in the limited time she’d had to make preparations. Sakura excused herself silently to the bathroom marked clearly nearby and retched a bit, no food in her stomach to empty out. Tears would not come, grief and fear unable to reach a consensus on which emotion won out. She couldn’t tell at this point if she wanted them to. In some ways being empty was a comfort over a curse.

No one came to check on her. It seemed almost as if there were no other staff at all, and the way the attention-starved children crawled all over Gaara validated this. She had her work cut out for her. She could not break down at the sight of a child when she was supposed to be a pillar of emotional strength for them to draw from. Cursing under her breath, she headed to the small sink to wash her hands and splash some water on her face. She would not panic she would not cry and she would not back out this early in the game. As she emerged from the room a small boy bolted away from the entrance. With a sigh she wondered exactly how much privacy there was in this building. Not bothering to chase after the rogue boy as she undoubtedly would have in the past, Sakura returned to Gaara’s side where there was in fact another staff member ready to run down her duties.

Though it had seemed like an absolute torrent of children stayed in the building as they rushed Gaara earlier, she came to learn there were only ten children that would be staying full-time at the shelter with a rotation of ten to fifteen more staying on occasion. Her role, as explained to her hastily, was not as a teacher or instructor of any kind but rather as a nurse and supervisor. She was to become a glorified once-a-week nanny, assuming the kids didn’t require too much medical attention. The role suited her just fine after wearing herself rather thin as a combat medic for so many years. Bandaging some minor wounds and putting herself in close proximity to children whose parents had abandoned them in death or out of neglect seemed like a walk in the park compared to the horrors of war, or so she told herself.

Maybe sensing some trepidation, the aforementioned teacher clapped a hand on her shoulder and grinned. “It’s not easy,” the much older woman professed. “But someone’s gotta do it.” And in fact, someone was. Her eyes strayed from this woman’s kind face to the stragglers who remained with Gaara on the floor. The source of her prior emotional distress, a little girl named Rin, was fully in Gaara’s lap telling him an outlandish tale involving a dragon and her snot-nosed companion whose name she had yet to learn. The boy looked alternately between Rin and Gaara in complete adoration, having nothing to add to the story but happy to be soaking each word up.

A bell rang out, prompting the older caretaker whose name she hadn’t even caught to start. “That’s my cue!” she called out with a cheeky smile, herding every child in sight down a hallway and into a modest adjacent room. Sakura attempted to help Gaara off the floor, offering a hand that he eyed warily before pushing himself up without aid. Less out of malice and more out of misunderstanding, he carried on much the same as he had before entering the shelter and followed the group into what Sakura quickly discovered was a classroom.

The children took their seats as Sakura and Gaara lined up along the back of the room to observe. It was interesting to see children of various ages all learning the same material, but upon closer inspection she could see the lessons were tapered to each pupil relative to skill rather than age. The building undoubtedly would thrive with more staff lessening the burden on this single teacher who strove to be in ten places at once. Sakura afforded a glance in Gaara’s direction and discovered him deep in thought, watching intently as her new coworker flitted about the room.

After a brief eternity the lesson was over and the group dispersed, some children returning to Gaara’s side but most darting off to eat or play elsewhere. Gaara kneeled down to say his goodbyes, Sakura standing at his side warily. She had yet to be introduced to many of the children, but a curious child entered her periphery in an unguarded moment. It struck her this was the same child that had spied on her pathetic display in the bathroom and before she had a chance to feel shame he offered his hand to her. Unsure what to do, she assumed a crouching position next to Gaara and allowed the quiet child to speak his piece.

“I’m Aki,” his voice was quiet at first but he grew louder as his companion Rin left Gaara’s side to join him. “I’ll save you, miss…” came the next words, embarrassingly loud.

“It’s Sakura,” she spoke in what was hopefully a measured tone as she took his tiny hand in an attempt at a handshake. “Let’s save each other, okay?” with a smile and a nod he turned around and bolted away, leaving his friend and the source of most of Sakura’s distress alone beside her. Rin rolled her eyes and headed off to find the boy, but not before giving Sakura a weak smile that was beyond her years. It was altogether too much and she excused herself from the room, from the building, heading back to Gaara’s quarters without waiting for her guide to join her.

In the beginning the weekly visits were all as excruciating as the first. Her fear of children seemed to be more pronounced as things went on than when she first arrived, as a house call one weekday afternoon to help with a nasty bout of the flu that was racking the small body of a young child had nearly forced her from the room. Of course she stayed, an unwilling participant in exposure therapy she'd essentially signed herself up for. After things were all clear for the boy and the sun had dipped below the desert skyline Sakura stole away for a brisk walk as far away as her legs could take her. Still unfamiliar with much of Suna and not willing to risk getting lost, she stuck to the same route she'd taken on the few occasions she’d left the sanctity of her room prior and ended up stumbling across Gaara himself. For his part he made no sound of surprise nor did he turn to greet her, eye on the horizon instead as he sat on a large rock parked at a crossroads from the city proper to a more residential area. 

“Hey,” she called out before getting too close. He could clearly sense her presence without the addition of social niceties but she feared catching him off guard all the same. His reply came low, a simple muttered hey as his vision remained fixed on some far off point in the sky. “Come here often?” the attempt at a joke sounded forced even to her own ears as she plopped down beside him, their elbows a fraction of an inch from touching. Finally he looked at her, discomfort apparent on his usually relaxed features even in the weak light of the moon.

“I often come here,” he explained earnestly. “Even without Shukaku I have difficulty sleeping. I've been told this may always be the case. But it's not so bad... The night is quiet,” he added as an afterthought. Quiet until she arrived, she supposed he meant. The moment of peace stretched out between them as neither made any attempt to interrupt the silence. Sakura hashed through her thoughts not quite in solitude, relieved to have another party nearby to keep her grounded in reality without having to actually speak aloud. She’d been able to help someone, a helpless child suffering from a bout of illness he may not have been able to survive on his own. At the very least, she’d given his parents peace of mind. Focusing on the positive in this way, her anxiety drained from the tightness in her shoulders and released its hold on her balled up fists.

After some time exhaustion took hold and she dared to pat Gaara delicately on his arched back before heading out. “Thank you!” she called in a half-whisper behind her, unsure what exactly she was thankful to him for -- his surprised expression betrayed a similar line of thinking. 

In the weeks that followed their chance encounter she developed a rhythm in her visits to the orphanage. Weekly, the doors to the orphanage opened upon her arrival and a flood of children would stream out to meet her. Over time curiosity developed into delight and as November came to a close the children clung to her as they did to Gaara not two months before. Gaara himself would be there on occasion, observing with a silent smile that spoke volumes. It seemed as though he visited the orphanage not for the good of Suna or something grandiose; rather, he spent time with the children for his and their own benefit. Sakura learned to greet each child by name, pushing back the dread crawling up her spine and compartmentalizing with so much ease it became a skill. Once she removed the fear and sadness from the scenario, she was a natural at childcare. The “checkups” were less for physical ailments than mental; having a regularly scheduled visit with a person who enquired about how they were doing seemed to work wonders for the children. In turn these visits grew almost comforting to the medic, closer to a retreat than a nightmare.

Without fail the comforting feelings would pass, sometimes mid-visit but increasingly after she had left for the day and was no longer surrounded by the cries and laughter of the children in her care. After leaving each week she began to head straight to Suna’s training grounds. Post-war, later in the day on Sunday the fields were abandoned. The space seemed to greet her, her emotions palpable and bursting at the seams as she began to move the earth around her as she had every week preceding. Working without rest, fighting an imagined enemy that wore her face, Sakura tore up the training ground in trademark style before collapsing in on herself in a panting mess what felt like hours later. A night like any other, with a single exception this time.

“I’ve heard reports of our pink-haired guest vandalizing the training grounds every Sunday night,” came a measured voice behind her, hardly audible as it competed with the rush of blood in her head. She swore she could hear the smile in Gaara’s voice without turning to look at him. “But the next day everything is back to normal, so no one has been sent to investigate.”

“I always clean up after myself,” Sakura rose and whirled on him indignantly, surprised to see an actual smile gracing his boyish features. Unable to summon anger to hide her embarrassment and rather exhausted after the exhilaration of training, she allowed her knees to buckle once more and hastily sat on the levelled ground across from him. He nodded carefully, gingerly taking a seat as well and studying her without so much as a word in reply.

The pair sat in silence for longer than she cared to, but getting up and walking away was out of the question. Up to this point she’d been confident no one was bothered by her fits of emotion destroying the abandoned grounds each week. It was beyond embarrassing to have an audience with the Kage amongst the wreckage of what (to her) was very obviously a weekly mental breakdown. He seemed altogether unimpressed by her shame.

“If you don’t like children, why did you take the job?” Gaara chose each word with care as if designed to inflict pain, though his curious expression belied no such intent. Sakura shook her head before standing up and dusting herself off, too tired to explain and not quite prepared to divulge the selfish reasons behind her choice of mission. As she walked past him he shot up and grabbed her arm, loosely but in a direct attempt to capture her attention.

“I love children,” Sakura explained as his grip grew looser still, “it’s just hard for me to be around them sometimes.” The words hung in the air between them, her host silently imploring her to continue despite her obvious avoidance of the topic at hand. At last she summoned the will to move and did so promptly, leaving him behind without bothering to rearrange the training grounds to their pre-Sakura state. Gaara remained standing, rooted to the spot with a limp arm outstretched as he pondered her outburst.

December marched in without noticeable change to the landscape. The first rain she’d seen in months chased her out of the training grounds in early December, and she found herself returning less and less that month. Increasingly putting in hours at the daily hospital grind served as a replacement, maybe a bit less detrimental to her health though not by much. As she picked up extra shifts and chose to forego sleep, she could almost forget what she left behind. The children greeting her at the end of a long week was less disquieting than it had been at the start, and as the rainy season took hold it appeared Sakura had finally gotten her rhythm back.

It stood to reason (given her luck) that she would then finally hear word from Konoha. As she entered her quarters one evening early January she found a letter accompanied by a large package addressed to her: the package bearing the name of a law office and one bearing no sender information but showcasing Sasuke’s unmistakable handwriting. Without questioning herself she tore open Sasuke’s letter hoping for an explanation before she opened the obvious divorce settlement.

The letter was short and blunt, painstakingly to the point. “Sakura, I’m sorry we didn’t part on good terms. Know that I will always love you. I wanted to tell you before anyone else does, but I’m establishing a new relationship with Karin. The wedding will be in a few weeks. I feel like a ticking clock that is slowly running out, and I have to hasten my relationships so that I can keep the Uchiha line alive. I hope you can understand this. I know you will.” The letter was unsigned like the envelope that housed it, unmistakably Sasuke and unbearably sparse.

Sakura wondered while searching for another page in vain if she understood this better than Sasuke himself. It had been so easy to blame him for ruining her life over the last few months that she had hardly stopped to think of her own role in the chaos. Of course Sasuke would move on as quickly but respectfully as he could. She’d only been watching him her entire conscious life, only knew since she was a little girl exactly what he was after. Though it pained her to take the blame when the situation so clearly did not call for it, all at once she felt a strange calm when it occurred to her that perhaps they were doomed from the start. Had he really needed to say he still loved her, though? That sentiment he snuck in was perhaps the most traumatizing part of the letter, moreso even than the news that he was charging forward and ready to make babies with someone more functional than herself.

Her love for Sasuke was borne out of childish naivety and ideals that wouldn’t survive in the real world. Sasuke saw children, saw their child, as a means to an end rather than a gift to be cherished. How could she have expected differently? In fact, when they first married he had pulled her aside to ensure they were on the same page: have as many children as they could, keep the Uchiha line alive through her. At the time she found it romantic and exciting to bear the child of the only man she’d ever loved. Reflecting back it felt more like a curse, a sign of her disposability, than a wedding vow.

Before opening the package from the lawyer she reined herself in, surprised to find less emotion coming to the surface than expected. No matter what sort of settlement she had been so graciously gifted by the Uchiha heir, the best thing he ever gave her was a lesson in love. No more would she chase down the shadow of another man with the idle hope he would see her for who she really was. She silently wished Karin the best of luck in producing an heir for the Uchiha name before allowing herself to enter the room’s small closet and taking out the baby shoes she had unpacked mere months ago. The inscription remained on the bottom of one shoe, reminding her of how far she has come and what it was that she had really lost in Konoha.

The package from the lawyer gave salutations and a stacks of bills she had no idea what to do with. She wasn’t even sure how Sasuke had procured so much money so fast. Banking wasn’t her strong suit, and though she received monthly pay for her work at Suna’s hospital and the orphanage she scarcely bought anything but groceries. For the time being, the absurd bundles were set aside, tucked in the closet haphazardly, as she was possessed with the urge to be anywhere other than inside the four walls surrounding her.

All at once the space felt too small and she headed outside, seeking a secluded place underneath the stars to remember how to breathe again. Leaving her belongings and Sasuke’s letter strewn about the room that had begun to feel like home, Sakura headed out to the crossroads she met Gaara at once before and somehow managed to feel surprised when she caught sight of him again.

He hardly looked up as she approached, alerting before relaxing as she took up residence beside him. Neither of them spoke, Sakura’s ragged breathing intruding on the quiet of the night for several beats before he turned to his right and took in the sight of her crumbling facade. “Are you alright?” he asked, in doing so shattering the last emotional dam she had built on the way over. A sob wracked her body before she could push it back down. Her eyes began to cloud with tears as the redhead visibly panicked beside her, eyes darting around in the dusk for a sign of what he should do. No sign apparent, he settled on pulling her into a loose hug that seemed to serve only as fuel to the fire. The hug grew tighter, Sakura returning the gesture until it seemed as though they were both holding on for dear life.

“My ex-husband is getting married,” she explained when she was finally able to speak. Gaara nodded, whether in knowing, understanding or politeness she couldn’t parse. “But that’s not why I’m upset. I don’t think I’ll ever love again, anyway.” At this the Kage allowed a puzzled expression to mar his typically neutral features. She was confused as well, couldn’t find a way to express the jumbled up emotions currently waging war inside of her. The barking of a dog shocked them both from their stupor, bringing Sakura back to the realization that she was sobbing rather loudly in the middle of a currently abandoned pathway.

With an unsteady hand her host guided her back to the Kazekage’s chambers, down the winding path they’d both taken separately to their accidental meeting spot, up the spiral staircase she’d caught sight of the day she’d arrived and through a large door she’d never seen before. All at once she was inside his bedroom, though it was so large (and contained another entire sitting room) that it hardly felt intimate. “This is more private,” he explained in response to her unspoken query. “You are safe here.”

There was nothing to do but nod and allow her tears to run dry as he parked them both on a nearby couch. It didn’t take long before she realized she was leaking tears all over the most important man in Suna, the one who graciously welcomed her into his home and mercifully asked no questions as she arrived on his doorstep after the most harrowing ordeal of her life. When she drew back he made to follow before pulling himself away as well.

“You’re afraid of me,” Gaara said to the floor before meeting her eyes, a far cry from the confident man he’d seemed to be before. Sobered by the aftershocks of her outburst, Sakura played out every possible response she could give and reaction he could have. She was afraid of him after all, but in a much different way than she’d felt before. No longer did the movement of his hands make her remember being suffocated by sand as she prayed her teammates would save her, prayed Sasuke would pluck her from the monster’s grasp and take her face in his hands as though she were something precious. Now each glimpse she stole of him made her feel as though she was betraying her former husband, even as the announcement of his impending marriage lay discarded on her bed. She could feign surprise and lie that she had never once feared Gaara; he’d see through that right away. She could do the opposite and admit there was fear still there without explaining more. She could tell the truth. Instead the redhead cut into her introspection by continuing to speak. “Most people still are. I have changed since the war but you can’t be expected to believe that without knowing me very well.”

“I’d like to know you better,” Sakura admitted before she could fully plan out his potential reactions. Not a single scenario she’d run through compared to the sight of his subtly pink cheeks as he folded his hands on his lap, separating the two of them with a simple change in posture and a look cast at the door. She felt each movement of his hands in his lap, noted each beat of her own heart as the aforementioned fear crept up her throat. Was finding him attractive so wrong? Was it so unbearable that she wanted to tell him everything, despite the fact that he’d surely look down on the path a stupid girl like herself had taken? When he turned back to look at her his eyes were swimming with questions that she wasn’t equipped to answer. “But tonight I’m way too tired!” the comment lightened both of their moods, pressing him to stand and help her up before she scurried off to her own room gracelessly. She’d never been a coward before, but she supposed that people change with age; it can’t all be for the better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic will be in three parts, published each Sunday for the next three weeks. Thank you to my friends C & D for reading over my work and giving me amazing feedback. Without you two this fic would have never seen the light of day, given I've spent two years agonizing over it. Please let me know if you enjoyed it.


	2. Friends

When Sakura awoke alone in the clothes she wore the day before, memories of the previous night quickly came back to her. At least she hadn’t been lying about the exhaustion; working without rest had taken an undeniable toll on her body. It wasn’t as though she’d been inebriated the night before, but something about Gaara had prompted her to nearly share her deepest secrets with a man she’d only spoken to a handful of times. After Gaara’s admittance that he was very much aware of public sentiment around him Sakura felt as though she knew him better than most anyone, maybe even Naruto himself. The thought of being more familiar with Gaara than her friend warmed a part of her heart that had long been neglected.

Not quite six months after they parted at the gates of Konoha, Ino pushed her way back in Sakura’s life unannounced. The pinkette arrived at the hospital early on a Monday as per usual, thrilled to sink every waking hour into helping out Suna’s sick and injured rather than moping around and obsessing over someone completely unattainable. The night nurse frowned at her attempt to change guard, stopping her from suiting up in scrubs and reminding her unceremoniously that she was on a much-deserved vacation.

“Your friend insisted you have this week off,” the kind older woman explained. “And who are we to argue? You’ve been running around ragged practically since you got here. Not that we don’t appreciate it!” Moments for chitchat were scarce so early in the morning, meaning Sakura was quickly left alone to figure out who exactly had requested time off on her behalf. She couldn’t really point to any friends she’d made beyond casual work acquaintances and whatever was going on between her and Gaara. The Kage was definitely not the type to stick his nose in her business like that, even if she really had been quite exhausted recently. Conceding without a fight and resolving to figure it out later, Sakura let her hair down and trudged back to bed.

Waiting inside the doorway was a sight for sore eyes: her blonde best friend, sprawled out on the bed surrounded by way too many bags and missing her pants. Evidently her fair friend had not yet acclimated to the heat of a Suna winter. Hearing her commotion upon entering, Ino leapt up and pulled her into a crushing hug that Sakura couldn’t help but return in full force. “Of course it was you!” she cried in a moment of delirious joy. Having gone so long without seeing or hearing Ino had nearly put her friend from her mind but they picked things up where they left off with ease. It felt like days, not months, since their tearful farewell.

“I missed you so much,” Ino’s words echoed her thoughts. “Naruto said you sounded like you needed a break in the mission updates, and I felt the same way myself,” she admitted sheepishly. “Can’t tell you what a pain in the ass it’s been keeping all of this from you, but I had a little help from a certain handsome Kazekage along the way,” with a wink, Ino was pulling on the shorts she’d discarded on the floor and fanning herself. “It sure is hot and humid here … or is it just me?”

Reeling from the information dump she’d just been subjected to in typical Ino fashion, Sakura forgot for a moment how to speak. Finding her voice, all she could manage was a meak “you get used to the heat.” Ino nodded knowingly, whether it was at the blush that crept up Sakura’s face at the mention of Gaara or her off handed comment about the desert heat she couldn’t say.

“Speaking of,” Ino continued before Sakura could get her bearings and paint on a poker face. “He seemed very interested in talking about you, and I may have indulged him a little bit. Are you two - well, are you together?” Leave it to Ino to arrive, hug her, and immediately interrogate her about her dating life.

“Absolutely not!” Sakura cried between hands that had involuntarily flown to cover her face. The pair moved together from the doorway to sit beside each other on the twin-sized bed, a nearly imperceptible breeze flowing from the window nearby. “No way. I’m not interested in rebounding right now.” At this statement Ino rose from beside her friend and chose instead of kneel at her feet, forcing Sakura’s hands off of her flushed face and drawing attention directly to herself.

“Honey. It’s not a rebound if your ex is literally already married to someone else,” she said conspiratorially. The statement stung but not enough to prompt tears. “Sorry,” Ino must’ve noticed her friend’s wince but didn’t stop talking. “I know it hasn’t been that long. But you can’t wait around willing yourself to get over him when he’s left you so far behind. You’re running from nothing! I’m so tired of you and I getting pushed around by these dumbass men with their stupid agendas and incapability to feel anything beyond their fucking di-”

“Are you fighting with Sai again?” the pieces clicked together for Sakura, who had perked up about halfway through her friend’s tirade. The blonde had fallen effortlessly into a relationship with Sakura’s robotic team seven alum shortly after the war, but his emotional stunting had resulted in more than a few fights. Ino had a larger flair for the dramatic than she did, and while Sai lacked Sasuke’s ego he was certainly just as pigheaded. Their marriage the previous year had done little to settle their arguments. Ino’s mouth stopped in its tracks at the question and she sighed, defeated.

“We did fight,” she admitted. “But that’s not the only reason I came!” it was a weak excuse that Sakura wanted so badly to believe. “I had to ask for this week off a month in advance! And coordinating with the emotionless heartthrob you call a Kage required every ounce of patience in my body!” During her impassioned speech Ino had risen to a standing position, pulling Sakura up with her. A flutter of laughter from the pinkette -- Gaara had seemed like an emotionless heartthrob to her at first, too -- gave way to copious amounts of hugging and crying. At last their grievances were aired and they could get on with the catching up.

Hours passed as the two wandered Suna, stopping in shops Sakura had slowly discovered throughout her time in the village. They had lunch at a charming cafe a stone's throw from the market where she showcased for Ino the best food and artwork Suna had to offer. Sakura was unable to resist buying a pink-tipped succulent that would fit perfectly with the others along her windowsill. Ino purchased some handmade paints, a transparent gift for Sai, with a moody expression staving off any and all conversation before they called it a day and headed back to Sakura’s room. There was a kitchen in the guest area that she seldom used, but that day the two came equipped to cook up some breakfast for dinner like in their sleepover days.

“Sasuke’s wedding was basically abandoned, by the way,” Ino called out lazily from the other side of the kitchen counter as Sakura focused on not burning the sausages, tensing only slightly at a fresh mention of her ex spouse. She’d known Sasuke’s wedding must have happened by now, over a month after receiving his letter, but hadn’t really entertained the thought of what it would be like. The news that it was poorly attended didn’t improve her mood. She almost felt bad, as if Sasuke was still a part of her that needed attention and care even if she wanted to sever it and be done. “Naruto and Hinata went. Hinata threw up on the wedding cake,” Ino’s story was interrupted by a snort from her previously somber companion. 

“Seriously?” Sakura turned away from the pan to make sure her friend wasn’t telling a tale just to make her laugh. Apparently Hinata was terribly sick in her last trimester, unfortunate for her but hilarious for this exact moment alone. Ino was red-faced now too, forcing down a cackle to finish her thought - Sasuke had taken it in stride and declared it was a good sign for Karin’s fertility.

Had she not laughed so hysterically Sakura surely would have cried. The two were causing such a ruckus in the kitchen she was mildly concerned that someone would come and shush them, but the laughter wouldn’t stop. Ino moved towards her, saving the sausages in the pan behind her from burning and cracking a few eggs through tears as Sakura held onto the counter for dear life. Hanging on the edge of hilarity and tragedy felt amazing compared to the months and months of grating impassivity she’d been trapped in. It was a good thing Ino came.

As they finally halted in their laughter, Ino began to dish about her relationship with Sai. Through bites of food it became clear she was working on an “absence makes the heart grow fonder” angle by ditching him for a week. If Sakura was supposed to feel like an errand along the way she didn’t, over the moon to see her friend at all and knowing the journey to Suna wasn’t exactly a picnic. It wasn’t as though she’d written to Ino much either - the lack of communication had gone both ways.

Gaara appeared at the end of their night in, when the conversation had quieted and they were passing around a bottle of wine with no attempt made to get glasses and act civilized. Colour flooded Sakura’s cheeks when she saw him atop the stairwell overlooking the two of them, not sure how long he’d been there but certain he only began to descend when she took notice. She sat up a bit straighter and tugged anxiously at her shirt at the sight of him.

“Ino,” he addressed her friend in a shockingly warm tone. “It’s my pleasure to host you. Please choose any room in the guest wing you’d like to stay in. Any guest of Sakura’s is welcome here,” the last sentence made Ino raise an eyebrow in Sakura’s direction. Sakura could only gape at Gaara’s smile as Ino responded with her thanks. As quickly as he arrived, their host was gone and the two snuck back to Sakura’s room self-consciously.

“He’s so, so unbelievably hot!” Ino crooned once they were safely behind closed doors. “Please tell me you noticed how he looked at you!” Sakura plopped down on the bed next to Ino, refusing to answer the question or acknowledge there was any difference in the way he treated her. It was terrifying to think that Gaara’s feelings towards her were changing, whether romantically or simply from guest to friend.

“I’m not ready, Ino,” Sakura professed before collapsing backwards on the bed. A year ago she’d been happily married and trying like hell to conceive, timing each cycle and writing notes on ovulation like her life depended on it: her married life actually had. She had even contemplated, at first, not saying a word to Sasuke regarding the doctor’s warning about her fertility. Had she loved him just a little less, she could’ve ridden out several years basking in his occasional affection until he finally got the message and threw her out himself. The thought was unbearable now with the physical and mental distance between herself in October and herself now in February. It was foolish, but at the time she loved him too much to lie. Ino’s eye roll was audible.

“For once in your life, do something fun!” she whined. “I’m not saying you need to marry him. Have you ever even had a one night stand?” they both knew the answer. Sakura had hardly known a man outside of Sasuke in love or in sex. In the months since she left Konoha she had scarcely thought of having sex with anyone, couldn’t even fondly recall any passionate times she’d had with Sasuke without agonizing over the awful outcome. Sensing she’d hit a nerve, Ino sighed and rested a hand on her friend’s arm affectionately. “We’re going out. Not tonight,” she continued over an unhidden groan from her companion. “Not tonight, but tomorrow. We’re gonna get you a sexy outfit and we’re gonna dance our butts off and you don’t have to fuck anyone but if you do, you’ll have my blessing.” Ino’s word was final.

Eventually Ino left her room to sleep next door, both of them waking later than usual and taking turns in the shower before heading out to scout out potential clubs while they still had the light of day to guide them. Sakura had never been a clubber, even before marriage, and she definitely hadn’t thought to bring any little black dresses with her from Konoha. Hell, she wasn’t sure if she’d ever owned one. Ino guided her along a street of shops as if she were the host now and helped her select something tasteful but just outside of Sakura’s comfort zone. They found what seemed to be a club district which was completely asleep at 2 PM but would be bursting with lights and sound by nightfall.

As if on a mission, Ino applied Sakura’s makeup before her own and had her whirl around in the bathroom mirror until they were both satisfied. The emerald green top they’d selected together hung off her shoulders and reflected her eyes unlike any of the drab outfits she ordinarily wore; the skirt Ino had chosen for her was skintight and left little to the imagination. While the outfit was by no means gaudy, Sakura mourned the loss of her usual muted colours and long sleeves in silence as Ino touched up her own mascara.

Being careful to arrive late but not too late, they set out just after 11 and found the club district to be exactly as awake as anticipated. Not being from the area, it was hard to judge the quality of a club’s denizens without entering the doors. Ino settled on the club with the highest cover charge, which she didn’t pay and waved Sakura in behind her as the bouncer smiled at them hungrily. “This is just like Konoha!” Ino called back to her, trying to shout over the music but giving up and smiling instead. The music grew louder as they actually entered the building, stopping first at the bar to grab a drink before promptly downing it and heading to the dancefloor together.

At first Sakura was embarrassed to have her friend openly grinding on her in a sweaty sea of bodies, but a few shots in she was rubbing right on back. As the DJ swapped the fast-paced electronic music for something slower and smoother, Ino took her hand and guided her back to the bar. It was approaching midnight when a flash of red hair caught Sakura’s eye. Upon closer inspection it was auburn after all, darker brown and more tame than the mane of the man she’d been expecting. Ino honed in on the target of her gaze before she had a chance to rein it in. “He’s cute,” she said under her breath before grabbing the man’s attention and calling him over.

“Ladies!” the slightly older man called out in response to Ino’s come-here gesture. He couldn’t be quite 30, with a firm body and an impish grin as he approached the pair. “Name’s Ken. Never seen you around here before…” the question went unspoken, probing with his eyes rather than his words.

“I’m Ino,” her best friend had her teeth bared as if ready to sink them in. “This is Sakura. We were just talking about what to drink… any suggestions?” At this their new companion brightened and gestured that he’d be right back. In his absence Sakura glared daggers at Ino who made sure not to pay her any mind. Before Sakura could gather her thoughts for long enough to give Ino a piece of her mind for drawing in the attention of some random guy, he was back with three drinks jostling around in his arms.

“My treat,” Ken was breathless with glee at the sight of Ino’s approving smirk. “Whiskey sours,” he leaned over to explain to Sakura, his face dangerously close to hers so she could hear him over the outrageously loud electronica music that was now vibrating the walls around them. He set the drinks down and Ino carefully selected hers, smiling at Sakura and downing it in two sips. Sakura was just drunk enough to disregard caution and down hers as well, before Ino took her arm and led her back to the dancefloor. The emptiness that had plagued her for months faded into the background, replaced by a pleasant buzz that filled her to the brim. Ken floundered to finish his drink and follow behind them, taking up position along the wall as the music picked up and Ino returned to erratically dancing right up on Sakura.

When Ken did opt to join them, he was respectful but ever present, slowly edging closer until his hands connected with Sakura’s shaking hips. Alongside all of the brushes of skin on skin she’d encountered that night it was nothing at all, dancing with a stranger. Ino turned to see what was happening and smiled brightly before laughing once again. It was fun to be here, to hang out with her best friend and let her hair down a little bit. Before her mind caught up, Ken’s hands were exploring up from her sides and approaching her breasts. She turned to face him and smiled encouragingly, feeling Ino’s back at her back and leaning in to kiss her dancing partner.

It was messy and sweaty and altogether mind blowing. I kissed someone other than Sasuke! She at first felt guilty, then rather pleased, before allowing her mind to wander back to the flash of crimson she’d hoped Ken had been before. It was nice, kissing Ken, but it wasn’t really what she wanted after all. Ino’s voice echoed in her head - just have fun for once! - as Ken took her hand and led her outside of the club, away from the mass of dancing people inside.

The stale desert air outside the club sobered her up a bit, but not enough to prompt her to remove Ken’s hand from the small of her back. They didn’t break physical contact until she’d been steered into an alley outside of the music and laughter of the drunks and it became apparent that Ino was no longer with them. Ken pulled back and smiled at her - she returned the smile on impulse. Her brain felt fuzzy, not completely wasted but almost grateful to have the smallest lapse in control for once. When Ken leaned over to kiss down her neck she did not protest, pushing down the urge in the back of her mind to look for Ino and cling to her like a security blanket.

They were fully making out along the brick wall when Ken pulled back again, eyes clouded with lust from the ferocity of their makeout session. “Would you like to come back to my place?” he asked innocently. Sakura found herself really contemplating it, seriously considering heading back to the place of this man without her best friend in tow just for the experience of it. But she was getting tired and while kissing him was fun Ken wasn’t exactly her prince charming, so she shook her head. He nodded without hiding his disappointment, heading back inside with a whispered “next time” and nearly colliding with Ino on his way back to the music.

“You should have done it!” Ino called out once he was out of hearing distance, making it clear she’d been watching the whole thing. It appeared Ino had helped herself to a few more drinks while waiting for their short tryst to end as she stumbled into Sakura and braced herself on her friend’s shoulders. Sensing the night was over for both of them, Sakura guided her friend back home. “You’re such a virgin,” Ino whisper-yelled into her side without a hint of malice as they hobbled off. Sakura couldn’t help but smile; it was a little true, after all. She had never had the kind of sex Ken had been after; sweaty bodies uniting briefly just for the fun of it. Every coupling with Sasuke, however romantic, was for the express purpose of furthering his bloodline, a fact that she could only laugh at now that she was far removed from the fact. And laugh she did, holding Ino up and chuckling to herself the whole way home. She was just sober enough to tuck her friend into bed before finding her own, just drunk enough to skip mulling over the nights events and pass out easily.

“How was it then?” Ino finally asked once they’d woken up and managed to brush their teeth without getting ill. Head pounding, Sakura couldn’t summon a cheeky reply and went for an honest approach instead.

“It was fun. Fun but unfulfilling,” pausing to contemplate her next words carefully, she shifted her gaze from Ino’s closed eyes to the succulents that lined her window sill. “I don’t think hookups with strangers are for me.”

Ino didn’t bother to suppress a snort, not opening her eyes or moving her head from resting on Sakura’s lap to mimic her words back at her. “Not for you, huh? Guess you’re ruined for casual relationships now.” They laughed softly as if it really was a joke and not the unfortunate truth. Being married young, having -- then not having -- a child before she felt like an adult herself put everything into a different context. Making out with a stranger in an alley by a club was fun for a few minutes, but it wasn’t enough to hold her attention long. It had been a nice night all the same.

The rest of the week passed in similar fashion. A few more club outings sans the sloppy makeouts confirmed for Sakura that going out was definitely not her cup of tea but she felt enriched by the knowledge. By the end of the week she found herself missing the rhythm of her daily hospital routine and surprisingly looking forward to the orphanage visit the next day. Ino spent the last night in her room, sharing the too-small bed with her and talking nonstop until dawn broke. They caught a few hours of sleep; the morning saw Sakura see her best friend off with promises of meeting again before another year ended, the implicit agreement made that Sakura was not going back to Konoha anytime soon. Surprisingly, Sakura was content to wait; in some ways, being apart from Ino had made the retreat together all the more special. The visit also reaffirmed her desire to stay in Suna for the foreseeable future, a question Naruto had been dancing around in his most recent letter. Increasingly it seemed that she thought of Suna as home though there were still so many unknowns about it.

After another tearful goodbye to Ino on Sunday morning, Sakura turned heel and headed straight to the orphanage. The usual greeting of delighted screams put a fresh smile on her face as she headed through the doors. 

March reared its head much the same as any other month in the desert, the brief bouts of rain that had marked the rainy season disappearing as time wore on. Sakura tried not to fall into despair after Ino left, seeking a new release to help ease the pain always thrumming inside of her. Gaara went from being at the orphanage on the occasional Sunday to being present every week without fail. The pair took to taking walks Sunday evenings, Gaara showing her places around Suna she’d never have found on her own. Suna was formed around an oasis, but there was more excitement outside the booming city center than one would expect. After having dinner in a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant together one evening Sakura nearly touched his hand by mistake. Virgin! Ino’s voice echoed in her mind as she blushed intensely and stared at her lap, anchoring her hands on her thighs with her dinner companion hopefully none the wiser. Her attraction to the Kage was becoming a bit ridiculous, a crush that was growing out of hand for someone so recently divorced.

Each time she reminded herself of this fact, the hard reality that she was a divorcée, it got a bit easier to see Gaara as a friend rather than a bachelor. They were good as friends, too. She’d chanced upon him in her room one evening, testing the soil moisture of each of her plants. Her host was a surprising green thumb, the curator of her succulent sill and caretaker of an entire greenhouse on the edge of town. She’d used said greenhouse to find an antidote to Sasori’s poison during the war, unaware it was lovingly looked after by the Kazekage himself. A penchant for plant growth was a surprising talent not normally well-suited for someone so entrenched in the desert. It fit him all the same; Gaara looked at plants almost like they were his children, smoldering with affection as he did for every living creature in a way that nearly destroyed every ounce of self control in Sakura’s body.

Under the guise of improving her medical abilities she spent more time in the greenhouse cataloguing plants and stealing glances at her new friend. Gaara would occasionally hum while he worked, seemingly unaware of the audience he had. Sakura wasn’t his only admirer; now that he was (probably) not a murderous asshole, half the town wanted to marry Suna’s Prince Charming. Gaara walked around with his head in the clouds as though the collective affections of his entire populace were inconsequential to him. Agonizing.

Sakura didn’t expect him to know about her birthday, especially as she learned belatedly she’d missed his. At the end of March she turned 21 with a cake from her favourite bakery and the man who’d taken her there, a sign she’d begun to truly settle in Suna. The celebration was more intimate than either of them could have predicted, consisting of a bottle of wine and some takeout noodles in the Kazekage’s luxurious sitting room. She exchanged stories with Gaara from her previous birthdays as he shared a few good memories of his own. 

Through Gaara’s eyes Suna took shape as a place of beauty and fear, time spent discovering hiding spots all throughout his childhood that he returned to even now. There was a divide between them still, details left undivulged on both sides as the symptoms of loneliness were explored rather than their cause. There were good times too: last January after a night of birthday drinking Kankuro had painted his sleeping brother’s face. The Kage had begun a meeting with foreign dignitaries before realizing the surprise decorations. Just the memory of his brother’s prank brought a smile to both of their faces. “I knew then he was no longer afraid of me,” Gaara smirked knowingly. Studying his expression closely, Sakura was filled with a desire as powerful as need to show him she, too, was no longer afraid.

It felt as though there was always more to share with him. She relished the feeling, unused to spending time with someone who wasn’t literally raised alongside her. Sakura thought of her friends back home, the connections she’d forged throughout a lifetime of living in one place and the special relationship she’d fostered after half a year in a new place. As the night came to a close and Gaara finished up a story about Temari sneaking out to get him a present for his seventh birthday, she thought mostly of Sarada. Only as the moonlight seeped in through the high-mounted windows and her glass of wine emptied for the third time did she realize she was ready to tell him everything.

Her host listened with rapt attention as she poured her heart out, names and dates spilling out as though she was writing a medical report and not recounting the most horrific moments of her life. Speaking of her baby for the first time in concrete terms was at once freeing and terrifying. In many ways she’d left her daughter behind in Konoha; there was no body to bury and the shoes she carried with her had never been, could never be, worn. A dam broke within her as she recalled each detail of the pregnancy more vividly than she’d dare tell her parents and described her internal turmoil at Sasuke’s actions in a way she couldn’t bring herself to share with Ino. 

Gaara was silent all the while, at times resting a comforting hand on her shoulder and other times withdrawing in contemplation. Since she’d set eyes on him on the floor orphanage, surrounded by children, Sakura knew it would come to this. It was impossible for her to hold back with him, the perfect gentleman and loving father figure to so many abandoned children. She certainly couldn’t have guessed it would happen so soon, March showers giving way to the end of the rainy season as her mission stretched to meet the seven month mark. In another life she’d be waddling around Konoha this time of year, preparing for the imminent arrival of her first child.

When she was finally truly spent, Gaara surprised her by sharing a part of himself. “I’ve never wanted to have children,” he began delicately, checking her response before continuing. “I don’t want a child to grow up like I did. Alone and miserable.” Sakura nodded, head pounding with the weight of the emotional energy she’d spent the last hour expelling. She’d heard a bit about Gaara’s childhood from Naruto, but the details he shared that evening had never reached her ears before. She hung on each word as his stories filled the gaps in the narrative she’d written for him, closed her eyes as if living vicariously through him. Previously empty, always empty, the raw emotion in his voice flooded her insides with warmth and terror in equal parts. Clearing his throat after detailing the death of his childhood caretaker Yashamaru, Gaara removed the hand she’d only just realized she had placed on his thigh. “I think it’s time for bed,” he smiled before helping her back down the stairs and into her bedroom. The night ended with a chaste hug that sent her heart racing and a letter from Naruto outside her door that she assumed was a birthday card and left for the next day.

When the following morning came she was surprised to find her head a bit sore. In anticipation of some drinking she’d taken a few days off with the intention of celebrating her birthday and memorializing what would have been Sarada’s birthday. Thoughts of her daughter were not as painful now, haunting her dreams less as spring dried up the earth around her and her tears with it. Sakura filled a glass with water and chugged it before briefly leaving her room to cut a slice of her own cake for the memorial. There was no one here but herself to mourn Sarada - she was unsure if Sasuke would even remember when their little girl was due. Would Sarada have come early, surprising them both and making her a mother at only 20? Or would she have waited to arrive, greeting the world with Naruto and Hinata’s child? The thought threatened to bring tears to her eyes and reminded her of the letter she’d set down the previous day.

Cake set to the side, hair pulled back into a haphazard bun and still nursing a small hangover, she delved into the letters contents. A plain birth announcement with no pictures as if to spare her the sight of them fell out of the envelope alongside a brief letter. Hinata undoubtedly had a hand in this kind notification, tailored directly to Sakura’s delicate sensibilities. All the same, Sakura began to feel despondent. She held the letter as far away from herself as she could, guilt seeping through every crack in her weakening armor. In her haste to run from everything in Konoha including her past self, she missed out on the birth of her former teammate’s first child. She hadn’t been there for the event itself, hadn’t sent congratulations of any kind, hadn’t enquired about Hinata’s pregnancy in her mission updates or even stopped to think about the concept of someone else having a child other than Karin in a few bitter moments. More than any of these things, she could not stop a horrible feeling of jealousy from welling up in her throat like bile to be purged from her system. How could Hinata and Naruto deliver with such ease something that she could never have? 

The letter attached was short and sweet, wishing her a happy birthday and hoping she was doing well. The details were scant forcing Sakura to fill in her own narrative of how much Naruto must love being a dad. Hinata must be over the moon, a healthy baby boy when they’d only been married hardly a year. Boruto’s tiny features must mimic his parents in some way, eyes like his mother’s or the beginnings of his father’s head of hair. A knock at her door woke Sakura from her stupor; Gaara, still clad in pajamas, had opened the door without waiting for her response once again. He was holding an identical birth announcement in his own hand, looking from the forgotten cake on her nightstand to the puffy redness in her eyes with a pensive expression.

“I think I understand,” he said quietly, his usually commanding leader voice absent. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Sakura waited for tears to burst out of her, certain at this point he’d seen her cry more often than not. Instead his words warmed her from the inside out and she gestured him over. “Help me eat this cake,” her voice cracked even as her smile remained. “It’s too much for one person.” Private time spent between them always seemed to oscillate from silence to uninterrupted chatter, this occasion favouring the former as they shared a fork to take down the slice she’d cut.

“She could’ve had the same birthday as Boruto,” Sakura sighed into the frosting. “Sarada, I mean.” Gaara nodded knowingly and wiped some frosting off his lip, licking his thumb thoughtfully. Everything seemed simultaneously wrong and right. Gaara being in her room was alien but necessary, his comforting hand inching towards her back out of place but right at home. Their friendship was contradictory and she was just about to lose her mind at the sight of his lips when he gently took the empty cake plate from her shaking hand and set it down beside them. 

“You’re a great mom,” Gaara shattered the silence that had been building after her statement. A great mom? She wasn’t a mother at all. She couldn’t be a mother, couldn’t be a wife, failed at damn near everything except running away. Before she could explain this to him the hand on her back reached to pull her closer. She couldn’t see anything, couldn’t feel anything but his chest as he effortlessly prevented her from interrupting. “Sarada knows it. She’s always with you. At the orphanage, when you’re taking care of the kids… you are the only mom some of them know. I have never known someone as loving as you are.”

Sakura managed to wrestle out of his grasp with minimal effort, but the bright red colouring his cheeks stopped her retort cold. His eyes were shut tight in embarrassment and a lack of self confidence, forcing Sakura to burrow back into his chest and save them both from having to confront the situation fully. “Thank you,” her voice was muffled by his shirt but she knew he could hear. Rather than respond his hands found their way to their back once again and the pair sat in silence until her stomach had the audacity to growl.

“Cake for breakfast wasn’t the best choice,” Gaara teased before she pulled away again. His face was bright red again, the blush travelling all the way to the tips of his ears. Sakura blushed in response, transformed into an awkward teenager under his gaze. Without daring to stay in the same room any longer, Sakura scurried off to the kitchen to find something more substantial and found her host conveniently missing from her room upon her return. This thing between them, whatever it was, was getting a bit out of hand.

The entirety of spring and a good chunk of summer passed before she heard much of anything from anyone in Konoha, Naruto answering her congratulations and the rare mission update with brief notes now that he was obviously a busy father. A letter from Ino was a welcome distraction from the strange chemistry brewing between Gaara and herself, until she read the contents and could hardly suppress an eyeroll.

“Sakura -- remember what I said about absence making the heart grow fonder? Well, it grew a lot fonder. Like, a lot. Anyway we’re having a baby! He’s due at the beginning of December and I’m really hoping you’ll be able to visit. I understand if not, but… I miss you. Let me know.  
❤ Ino  
  
P.S. Karin is also expecting. She and the Uchiha idiot are making sure everyone knows. But they’re definitely not due until after me. So PLEASE COME. Love you!!!!”

Ino was the only person she knew that could contain so much voice in a mere letter. It was as if her best friend was beside her, sharing the good and bad news in exquisite detail. Sakura felt actual joy for her friend’s good fortune, a twinge of jealousy all her heart could muster nearly a year after her own pregnancy announcement. Ino had waited quite some time to drop this bomb - the summer was nearly over, heading into fall with only a few months left until December. She imagined it was to avoid making the same mistake she’d made and letting the world know before the pregnancy was undoubtedly viable. It seemed like Sasuke hadn’t learned this lesson. She wished them the best all the same while firmly resolving to visit Konoha in December.

She spoke with Gaara as a friend and as her boss, requesting two weeks in December off to visit “home”. Even in calling it that, Konoha felt foreign to her after so much time away. Gaara showed genuine excitement for Ino and Sai’s announcement and offered to come along under the guise of a diplomatic mission. For some reason Sakura couldn’t quite put her finger on, she accepted the offer.

“Last time I visited Konoha was for Naruto and Hinata’s wedding,” Gaara explained passively. “I hardly saw you at all, back then.” 

“Well, I was a newlywed myself,” she agreed without thinking it through. Talking about her former marriage no longer made her feel as though her insides were rupturing. At the wedding she hadn’t been allowed to drink or socialize past 9 PM, already on a babymaking schedule of Sasuke’s devising. He’d been so laid back before the marriage, never cared much at all about what she did until it was time to further his bloodline. Unable to hide a smirk at the ridiculous thought, she noticed a second too late Gaara’s frown. He knew better than to ask, after nearly a year of tentative friendship had been blossoming between them. He would never ask her, so she had to choose to divulge what little scraps of information she tossed his way. It felt like the right time to address the elephant in the room.

“It obviously didn’t end well,” she was still smiling, aiming to fake it until she made it even in the face of Gaara’s unmasked concern. “Sasuke was… well, is… all about carrying on the Uchiha line. It’s a bit difficult to do that with a barren woman.” It was the first time she’d admitted out loud to anyone aside from Sasuke that having children was a true impossibility. In some ways it felt like an untested lie, not that she cared much to try, and fail, again to have a child. Gaara nodded, no longer frowning, rising from his seat at the Kazekage’s desk to pull her into a hug. 

“He didn’t deserve you,” Gaara mumbled into her neck, a gesture so intimate she felt goosebumps trail along the spots his breath touched. Unwilling to show him the blush currently erupting on her face, she pulled Gaara closer for another minute more. When they finally parted, it was decided. “I’m coming with you to Konoha.” She had no space to argue, even if she’d wanted to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for your comments on the last chapter. It really brightens my day to get feedback. I know this chapter is shorter than the first, but please rest assured the third and final chapter next week will be longer. Please let me know if you enjoyed! P.S. Happy Gaara's birthday :)


	3. Home

Chapter Three: Home

As it was never her mission to spend every single weekday at the hospital, no one minded when Sakura reduced her hours to breathe a bit easier. In fact, the head nurse looked relieved when she declared she wouldn’t be picking up shifts for a bit and happily granted her request for time off in December. “It’s amazing having you around,” the kind older woman admitted, “but it’s obvious you’ve been running yourself ragged. Enjoy the fall weather a bit, yeah?”

Despite all of the healing she’d done with time, Sakura still wasn’t ready to increase her time at the orphanage as she waited for news from Ino and prepared to visit Konoha for the first time in over a year. Instead, she spent more time outside and around Suna with the hopes of comparing it to her former home during the trip in December. Places Gaara showed her over their time together became regular haunts as she chose to visit with or without him when she needed to get out of her room. With Gaara at her side she took a shine to gardening over merely cataloguing plants, a logical step for a nurse like herself that she’d never thought to take before. Autumn days in the greenhouse passed lazily with Gaara ever-present at her side.

When December rolled around she was ready to leave Suna if only for a little while. After a long dry season, prickles of rain fell as she suited up for the journey with Gaara. Travelling with the Kage meant a full entourage would be accompanying them, though she was confident the two of them could take on just about any foe alone. Luckily there was no such incident on their journey and they arrived at Konoha’s gates to a small miracle - tiny dots of snow settling on the ground. Sakura was so pleased by the sight she nearly forgot to be afraid of what lay ahead.

At the gates Naruto was on her in an instant, pulling her into an enormous bearhug and then turning to Gaara to do the same. There was mercifully no welcome party lying in wait for them, though Sakura didn’t miss her parents standing off to the side as they entered. She ran to them with open arms and spent a few moments remembering their scent and the sound of their voices. Had her mom always had an accent like that? Were her father's arms always so strong and welcoming? One year had passed, but it felt more like a decade. Her father kept his hand on her arm as she pulled out of the hug, smiling proudly at her for reasons unknown. She hadn’t done anything fantastic, going to Suna. If anything the journey had been selfish: a necessary kind of selfishness. He released her arm and she returned to Gaara’s side for a moment, only to pull him towards her parents and make introductions. Her mother was keenly interested in Gaara and her father didn’t hide his curiosity. It wasn’t as though she was introducing a boyfriend to them, but it certainly felt like it.

They didn’t linger long at the gates before her mom realized she’d meant to invite them to dinner. Sakura hadn’t considered Gaara’s lodging; her dad offered him a room at the house, which he politely declined after accepting the dinner invitation. Naruto sheepishly explained he had an infant to get back to and bowed out, leaving the four of them to head back to her old home. Her mom chattered on the way there about all that had changed in her absence and only let up when they were seated at the dinner table to ask Gaara a million questions about himself.

Gaara was smooth, so different from the cold unfeeling heartthrob she’d seen in him when Kankuro lead her into Suna a year prior. Now, she supposed, he was just a regular heartthrob. A regular heartthrob eating with her mom and dad with his knee dangerously close to her own. Pushing unrealistic thoughts of forming a relationship with this man far, far out of her mind, she tuned back into the conversation right around when her dad asked Gaara what his intentions were with his daughter. She was speechless and Gaara seemed a bit put off before recovering flawlessly.

“Sakura has yet to share her intentions with me,” he began humorously even as Sakura entertained thoughts of hiding underneath the table. “But for now I think we’re having a great time as friends.” Her father nodded in approval, grateful for her to be taking something slow after the nightmare that his daughter getting married at 19 had been for them all. The rest of the evening passed pleasantly, Gaara helping her mother revive a houseplant tucked away without sun and discussing the climate in Suna with her father. She collapsed into bed at the end of the day, after Gaara had left to his hotel for the night and before she had a chance to see Ino at all.

The following day she woke up early and headed straight to Ino and Sai’s place. Sai greeted her, bright eyed and full of excitement she’d never seen grace his features before. “Ino will be so glad you came,” he began. “Oh, I should also mention that I am glad as well.” That was an interesting turn of events. She pulled her former teammate into a brief hug before being informed in no uncertain terms she was not to wake Ino. The two of them opted instead to pass the time in her friends’ small backyard, surrounded by Sai’s paintings and bursting with flowers despite the colder time of year and the rare dusting of snow. Despite his clear attempts at being personable, there wasn’t much to discuss aside from the pregnancy and neither of them seemed very interested in chatting about it. Instead, she commented on his art work and asked after his plans for the new year. Safe small talk.

When Ino finally awoke and emerged from the house, Sakura could hardly disguise her surprise. “Don’t say it,” Ino cut her off crossly. “I look like a whale!” she pouted before breaking into a smile. She was due any day now - Sakura had come just in time. Ino moved slowly and deliberately, a far cry from the way she’d flitted about the last time they’d met up. The pregnancy had made her absolutely glow; Ino and Sai were the picture of happiness. Sakura tried to ignore the twist in her stomach, tried to work past the feelings she forbade from bubbling up during this trip. Instead they had breakfast in the garden and caught up on missed life events.

Sai was gentle like she’d never seen, patiently doting on Ino throughout the course of the visit. The feeling was reminiscent of Sasuke’s behaviour over a year before; it gave her chills. When it was time to give them (and herself) some space, she made up an excuse of lunch at her parents’ place and ducked out for the day. Returning to her parents’ house she could hardly control the urge to vomit until it became unbearable. Sakura had been certain she was past this, had broken down so many times before that it was becoming ridiculous. She emptied the contents of their lovely breakfast from her stomach and hoped the feelings of jealousy would be disposed of alongside them.

The rest of the day moved slowly, no such lunch with her parents materializing. Gaara came around mid-afternoon and requested a tour, which she was happy to give. Konoha didn’t look very different from a year before and she was glad to find an excuse to explore with company. Running into Sasuke or Karin wouldn’t be as scary with Gaara tagging along. She gave Gaara the best tour she could, hitting up Naruto’s favourite ramen shop with him and hearing with surprise that it was not his first time there. They visited the field of graves at a time when Kakashi was conspicuously absent, wandered around the mountain chiseled with the faces of former Kages like she hadn’t since childhood. They arrived at Konoha’s training grounds with the sun high in the sky and shared a laugh about what she’d done to Suna’s grounds what felt like so long ago. The Uchiha compound was naturally missing from the tour, a question he didn’t ask and she didn’t see fit to answer. There was no sight of anyone she didn’t care to meet and only a few old friends crossed paths with them along the way.

Shikamaru was in Konoha for Ino’s delivery as well. They ran into him and Temari outside of the training grounds, Temari shocking them both by pulling Sakura and her brother into a hug on sight. “You’re doing the tour as well?” Shikamaru drawled lazily, not bothering to remove his hands from his pockets to greet them. Gaara seemed frazzled by Temari’s open show of affection so Sakura nodded in reply. No more words necessary, they split off as Temari called out her goodbyes. They had never been much of a hugging family, Gaara explained once his shock wore off. His look of surprise relaxed into a small smile when he thought she wasn’t looking.

Despite her anxiety earlier in the day, meeting old friends was easy. It seemed like everyone was “on her side” and none too eager to discuss the Uchiha debacle. She chatted with Lee shortly after seeing Shikamaru; he seemed a bit disturbed by Gaara’s presence but quickly warmed up to to the Kage. Gaara’s back straightened nearly imperceptibly as Lee carried on with his usual harmless flirting. When showing Gaara Konoha’s own open-air market she ran into Hinata and a very small Boruto, who was strapped into a stroller despite his best efforts to escape. Hinata seemed thrilled to see them, her usual apprehension discarded as she released her overeager toddler from his bindings to offer him, tentatively, to Sakura to hold. After a moment of hesitation she indulged, clutching his tiny wiggling form close and daring to smile down at him.

“That’s aunty Sakura,” Hinata cooed at the oblivious baby. He ceased his wiggling and babbled what sounded like ma-ma before Sakura hastily handed him back over. She hoped nothing was amiss, hoped she’d handled the baby properly, hoped no one noticed the impending panic attack coming on. Gaara’s hand flew to her back as soon as the infant left her grasp and he smiled at Hinata kindly.

“It was a pleasure to see you again, Hinata. We’re running late for dinner unfortunately, but let’s catch up soon,” he said with the smile never leaving his face. It was a flawless excuse delivered entirely for Sakura’s benefit. There were no actual dinner reservations to keep, so instead they picked up some rice balls to devour in her old secret hideout by the training grounds. The grounds looked different now that the sun was setting; the space seemed vast and empty, the spot she chose seemingly reserved for them alone.

“Thank you for before,” she whispered once they were safely tucked away from anyone she might know. He nodded as if it were nothing for him, as if perhaps he hadn’t done her a favour at all. The gesture made her heart throb as she came back down from her second anxiety attack of the day. “I used to come here to train without Naruto and Sasuke,” she smiled to herself at the thought. It had always felt like she had to work ten times as hard to get even half the results those two did. Sasuke’s name had passed her lips with little fanfare this time; here by their old stomping grounds she thought of him more as a teammate than an ex. If Gaara noticed he said nothing, instead nodding once again to encourage her to continue.

“I worked really hard,” she sighed and took a healthy bite out of her rice ball. “I spent a lot of time here.” In showing him this place, she exposed a part of her heart more fragile than she realized. He accepted her silence without probing further, taking down his own meal quickly and lying back to watch the stars.

“They’re the same stars,” he commented when she polished off her food and joined him, flat on the hard ground. “A different view but the same.” Unsure of the message he was trying to get across, she remained quiet. “Did you ever look up at them like this?”

“All the time,” she answered definitively. The gears turned in her head at the question, wondering if she caught his meaning but blushing at the idea of it. Even apart all these years, they had shared the same sky. Even as she was apprehensive of his intentions and concerned about his character they had both looked up alone to watch the night sky. When Gaara was in agony, siblings alienated and father plotting to kill him, when Sakura was pining after the man who would break her heart, they’d shared these stars. It was heart-wrenchingly romantic in a way she most certainly was not equipped to handle at the moment. He didn’t push, instead pointing out a few constellations that were absent from Suna’s winter skies before gathering up their things and walking her home.

The next day she was rudely awoken by a completely panicked Sai who came to collect her. “She needs you!” he’d shouted directly over her bed. Unable to ascertain who had let him in she pushed back questions and instead pulled on a sweater and rushed out behind him to the hospital. “She needs me too, you know, but she needs you just as much,” her companion said as they raced to their destination; the sentiment made her heart ache. She paused on the way there, contemplating asking Gaara to come along. He was becoming a security blanket to her in the same way Ino had once been. Opting instead to hurry on with Sai, she cast a single glance behind her before scurrying into the hospital where Ino was already in labour. She greeted her friend cautiously before approaching and gripping her hand. Sai paced the room nervously; Ino kicked him out “until the baby’s ready” before turning to Sakura for strength she wasn’t sure she could give.

A trained nurse, the most talented medic in all of Konoha unless Tsunade was in town, Sakura snapped into work mode with practiced ease. It was almost a form of dissociation to put on scrubs and start comforting her friend as though she was any other patient. Over time Ino became too delirious to care, allowing Sai back into the room to take her other hand as it came time for the baby to join them. A doctor attended to assist Ino, who had Sakura’s hand in such a strong grip she couldn’t hope to escape. This captive audience member watched as a tiny head came tumbling out of her friend, squirming in a decidedly uncute fashion before fully emerging with a scream.

The baby was quickly cleaned up, umbilical cord cut and wrapped in a blanket for mom and dad to hold close. Ino released her vice grip on Sakura to accept her child, cooing in little Inojin’s face as though she hadn’t been cursing his existence moments before. Weary from the adrenaline and hours of comforting her hysterical friend, she congratulated the couple before slipping out into the hallway. Gaara was seated outside, head bowed in what could have been a nap. She gently tapped his shoulder and he came back to life, smiling at her and rising to pull her into a hug.

“Everything okay?” her companion asked quietly. She couldn’t be certain if he meant Ino or the baby or herself. Rather than explain or ask for clarification she simply nodded and headed out of the hospital with Gaara in tow, not eager to be hugged again in her raw state. She peeled off her scrubs along the way, dropping them off at the front desk without explanation and stopping in the bathroom to wash up one last time. 

It was only when the familiar emptiness returned that she realized it had been absent for some time. Sakura felt a mental shift when she walked out of the hospital room doors, as if it was the last time she’d been at this hospital, when a gentle hug grated her skin like sandpaper and her insides felt unbearably hollow. It was as if she’d lost her baby all over again.

They wandered Konoha for a bit together in silence before settling into an old cafe Sakura used to love for a late lunch. It felt nice to be out of the hospital and back in natural lighting with no baby screaming and no loving couples in sight. They ate lightly and headed back to the hospital without needing to coordinate. Gaara seemed to follow her no matter how much or how little she said; he had been acting as her shadow since they first arrived in Konoha. His presence comforted her more than she could understand or express. She could only hope that continually thanking him for being there was cutting it.

Ino looked much healthier a few hours post-birth. She fell asleep holding Inojin, who was quietly extracted from her grasp by Sai after a few minutes. Sai offered the baby to Sakura to hold, gesturing weakly as if he already knew the answer. She declined, overwhelmed by the tiny fingers and wisps of hair on their baby’s tiny head. “Not yet,” Sakura managed to explain pathetically. Sai nodded as if he understood, as if it made complete sense to not be prepared to hold your best friend’s new baby. She left the hospital soon after with Gaara in her wake, giving her hand a brief squeeze as they parted ways at her house.

She fell into a deep dreamless sleep after her rude awakening that morning. The day had worn her down more than expected. Sakura was grateful the birth was uneventful, so proud of her friends as parents and eager to watch Inojin grow. She focused on the positives as her consciousness faded to nothingness.

Crickets chirped loudly outside when she awoke next to a figure over her bed. She made to scream but was promptly shut up by a hand over her mouth. Sasuke. It smelled just like Sasuke. Her eyes had yet to adjust to the dark but his scent and presence was unmistakable.

“Sorry to scare you,” his voice came from the darkness, hand leaving her mouth once it became clear she was no longer going to scream. “I didn’t want to bring Karin into this. She’s pretty far along.” Unsure of his expression as the dark still masked his features, Sakura couldn’t tell if he was intentionally trying to hurt her or just an idiot. It wasn’t necessary to ask as her eyes began to adjust and his face became clearer, the picture of innocence.

“What do you want?” she croaked, her voice uncharacteristically raw from disuse. He bit his lip as if to say he wasn’t sure himself. Sakura sat up more fully in bed and swung her legs over the side, glad she’d passed out in yesterday’s clothes. He was standing over her casually in what felt like a display of power, whatever his actual intentions were. As if sensing her discomfort, he moved to sit beside her on the bed and made things far more awkward. 

“I wanted to make sure you’re okay,” Sasuke said to the ground beneath them. She could no longer see his face but the hand snaking along her back served to reiterate his message. “I’ve been worried about you.” She certainly didn’t know how to respond to that. Comfort numbed her brain as he stroked her spine the way he used to do so long ago; she felt disgust at herself for allowing him to make her feel good. “Is the Kazekage your new boyfriend?” he asked with unmasked displeasure before she could slip into self-loathing: here was the real reason for his excursion into her bedroom.

“You remarried before the ink on our divorce agreement was dry,” she delivered this statement of fact with ease; she’d rehearsed it the whole trip to Konoha after all, an ace in her pocket she’d hoped wouldn’t come into play. Instead she showed her hand right up front, flustered by his late night appearance. “But no,” despite herself she felt the need to clarify. “We aren’t dating,” noting the relief on his face, she continued, “yet.”

“Sakura,” the way her name left his lips gave her pause. Rather than be drawn in she recoiled from him with as much subtlety as her tired limbs would allow. His tone was one of actual pain and distress, as if genuinely upset with the circumstances. “You put me in an impossible position.” Of all the conversations they’d had in her head, all the scenarios she’d run through in anticipation of crossing paths with him while out for a stroll in Konoha, him placing the blame for last year’s events squarely on her shoulders had not made the shortlist of possibilities.

“Oh!” her mask of mock horror served to hide feelings of agony bubbling in her gut. “I’m so sorry my infertility inconvenienced you,” she spat, no longer trying to hide the distaste his presence in her proximity had caused. Instead of retreating from her own room she opted to push him out, an open-palm shove sending him tumbling off the bed with a start. He hadn’t been prepared for this revolt, caught off-guard by her rage and off-balance by the blow.

Rising from the floor a split second after falling, he again approached the bed and placed a hand on her shoulder. “This isn’t how I meant for this to go,” he whispered as the low light of the moon revealed just enough of his face to show he wasn’t lying. “Sakura, I love you, you know I love you,” with each iteration of his declaration he grew closer until his arms were around her and his voice came from just behind the shell of her ear. It was all she could do to heave him away, untangle herself from the embrace he aimed to trap her in. When she pulled back he looked so unbearably fragile that she felt a shred of pity cut through all the anger. Pity, hurt and disappointment flooded in to replace the heat of betrayal though no feelings of affection accompanied them. It was empowering, to see him defeated and have no unconscious desire to save him for once.

“Go home to your wife,” she touched him just once more, to steer him back to the window from which he came. Fumbling for the light switch, she allowed light to flood the room in another attempt to cast him out. His face was dry; not a single actual tear had been shed, his back straightening as he realized she wasn’t buying into his emotional appeal. He faced away from her, toward the window, with palpable hesitation. “Your current wife,” she clarified with the intent to sting. If it succeeded, she couldn’t tell; when he turned back his expression was unreadable.

“She’s asleep,” he said blankly. Sasuke didn’t get the message. He was intentionally dense when he wanted something. She just couldn’t figure out for the life of her what it was that he wanted, until he saw fit to lay his plan out. “Sakura, do you ever wish we could try again?” he asked point-blank. With the light on it was impossible to miss the earnesty in his features, meaning the anger on her face must have shown quite clearly as well.

Gesturing to the window from which he came, Sakura could hardly speak. “Absolutely not,” she managed through gritted teeth. Gingerly, he advanced on her, grabbed the hand pointing his way out and lowered it to her side. Once it reached her hip he did not let go, kept his thumb on the pulse point of her wrist and rubbed it ever so slightly.

“I love you,” he whispered. “I… am sorry for how I acted before.” The apology came far too late. Instead of a kiss he got a mouthful of her fist before finally retreating from whence he came. How irritating. What had she seen in him? What was Karin seeing in him? Why exactly had he chosen to try and rekindle their relationship when he finally had a willing and able babymaker at his disposal? Maybe just one wasn’t enough. The thought sobered her after the adrenaline rush of kicking him out faded. Locking the window this time, she fell back asleep and dreamed of babies: a nightmare where she had so many she couldn’t look after them all, dozens of infants crying and vying for attention she could not supply.

When morning came, Sakura relished a slow awakening compared to the previous two rude wakeups she’d had. Stretching in bed, she mulled over the events of the previous day for just a few minutes before resolving to clue Gaara in. It was only fair that he know, after all, why she wanted to leave Konoha and never return so suddenly after arriving. She had a week of vacation left and hoped to spend very little of it trapped in the past with her ex-husband creeping around after dark.

Gaara took the idea that Sasuke had broken into her bedroom in the middle of the night and attempted to convince her to try again in stride; he was more bewildered than anything. “Try again?” he asked after they’d wolfed down a small breakfast lovingly prepared by her mother. Sakura had a slight suspicion their hostess was hovering nearby, seeking gossip or affirmation of their relationship status, but quickly dismissed the thought as Gaara leaned in to examine her lips. 

“Not sure where he got the idea I would,” she explained quickly, making every attempt not to notice his eyes watching her lips hastily deliver each word. At this admission her breakfast companion only nodded thoughtfully before placing a careful hand on her knee and rising from the table they shared. 

“Not fair of him,” at once Gaara’s voice took on an authoritative tone she hadn’t heard in months. “This is your birthplace, too.” Though he was factually correct, Sakura wasn’t as broken up about it as Gaara seemed to be. He bit his lip and hovered over the table a moment more before heading out the door. Alarmed, she leapt up to follow him.

“I thought we worked on this whole ‘leaving without telling anyone what you’re thinking or about to do’ thing,” Sakura called out from behind him, locking up on the off chance they’d actually been alone. When she caught up, he made no move to explain himself further. If Sakura hadn’t personally escorted him around town herself she might’ve thought he was headed for the Uchiha compound. There was no way he knew where it was, after all, as she’d taken care to skip that part of the tour. He marched on in that direction all the same, eyes set in front of him and stubbornly refusing to answer the questions she peppered him with.

Only when the pair arrived directly at Sasuke’s property line did Sakura finally admit to herself that it had been their destination all along. Sasuke materialized in front of them, no knock necessary to alert him to their presence. Her former husband cast her a single glance before focusing intently on her red-haired accomplice.

“I don’t recall inviting a foreign dignitary over,” Sasuke drawled with deliberate nonchalance. Gaara himself was unmoving, eyes wandering to study the surroundings and size up his opponent. Realizing the immediate danger the three of them and anyone nearby could be in, Sakura reached for Gaara’s arm to pull him aside. He relented, leaning over not to listen but to whisper in her ear. The message was lost as his lips approached her ear and all the blood rushed to her head - something about not worrying. Sakura’s face warmed; Sasuke’s hand twitched. 

“I invited myself,” Gaara explained carefully, slowly, each syllable an appeal to his own authority. “If not for the international incident it would cause, I would take pleasure in obliterating you from the face of this planet.”

“Get out,” Sasuke managed to say with eyes aglow. For several beats there was nothing in the air but tension, Sakura frozen with indecision watching the scene unfold. Part of her would very much like to see Sasuke obliterated from existence, but that would be suboptimal for diplomatic relations with Konoha. Maybe Naruto could smooth things over. Sasuke was a traitor anyway. Before she could express support one way or another, a voice called out from the house behind Sasuke.

“Honey?” came a faint call from inside. Karin. There was no sign of her at the door, but they all tensed as if she were in their midst. At once Gaara’s shoulders went slack and he turned away from Sasuke.

“Sakura might be too polite to do it,” Gaara said with an air of indifference. “But if you come near her again with those intentions I will destroy you. Diplomatic relations be damned.” With that he was off once again, leaving Sakura with a decision. Sasuke fixed her in place with a stare that begged for further conversation, the light of day illuminating every crease in his face as he began to speak. Not interested in further conversation, Sakura opted instead to follow Gaara and get to the bottom of one last mystery.

“How did you know where the compound was?” she asked breathlessly after catching up to him. For his part, Gaara slowed to a more leisurely pace and looked at her with amusement.

“Yours wasn’t the first tour I’ve had of Konoha,” he explained. His face had broken out into an actual grin at this point, the closest to cheeky he’d come throughout their stay in Konoha. “But it was definitely my favourite.” She gave him a playful punch in the shoulder as they carried on, deciding to pack and leave the following day.

Ino had been released from the hospital quickly and was relaxing at home with her newborn. Though disappointed to hear her friend was leaving early, after a quick update on the Sasuke drama she understood. “Bastard,” she spat out with fire despite the exhaustion clear her face. “When I’m done being an infirm new mom I’m gonna rip him a new one.” 

Sakura chuckled at that, privately wondering why she hadn’t done it herself. For now, Ino seemed too worn out to put up much of a fight and instead leaned in for a kiss on the cheek as they parted ways. After a night of good rest she was ready to head out again with Gaara and his guards alongside her.

Saying goodbye to her parents again was a stoic process. "I told you he was no good for you!" her mother wept into her shoulder dramatically, having been filled in on the highlights of the previous night.

"I know mom," Sakura could only sigh in response, patting her mother on the back before stepping away to fuss with her hair. The unspoken I-told-you-so’s from their last parting were coming out now. "You pulled me aside on my wedding day to let me know!" It was a moment she thought they'd all laugh about one day as she sat alongside her husband, bouncing a toddler on her lap. Instead the memory drove her mother to cry harder. 

"You don't have to leave," her father suggested. "You could stay with us for as long as you need." The offer was genuine but not remotely tempting. She had a home, a place she felt safe with people she loved, and it wasn’t Konoha anymore. After her mother wiped her tears, Sakura promised her parents she’d write more and visit again next year. The writing part would be easy, but she wasn’t sure she would make it back to Konoha anytime soon. Time would tell.

When they arrived back at Suna, Sakura took a long shower and drank in the feeling of being home. After everything that happened during the trip to Konoha, the orphanage was the last place she wanted to be. Personal feelings aside, she’d missed two visits and didn’t intend to miss a third. The birth of Ino’s child and holding Boruto in her arms, however briefly, had awakened feelings she really hope would be left behind in the new year.

Mental preparation hopefully complete, she steeled herself for the flood of children and laughed as she was nearly bowled over upon entering the building the next day. There was much to be said, questions about her disappearance quickly leading to questions about babies and Konoha and stories about other countries. When Rin, the little girl with black pigtails who usually demanded the most attention from Gaara, appeared in a classroom doorway Sakura felt her heart clench. Though she was surrounded by other kids they all seemed oblivious to the frown on her face; all but Rin, who quickly ran away from the crowd and was gone.

As the teacher rounded up the children for lunch, Sakura searched for the little girl without any luck. After a few minutes of intense searching gave no results she headed outside and caught sight of a lone figure sitting solemnly on a swing. 

“Do you hate me?” Rin asked when she finally approached the lone girl and crouched down to be at eye level. Just like the frown, Sakura couldn’t stop a look of shook from crossing her face. There was a silence between them aching to be filled, words unspoken that couldn’t seem to work themselves out of Sakura’s mouth. This girl was someone's daughter. Whether they'd died or left her behind was irrelevant; she belonged to someone else. Subconsciously she'd been shrinking away from Rin to prevent her maternal instincts from substituting this child for the one she couldn't give birth to. In the process, she'd ended up confusing and possibly harming a little girl.

"Of course not," Sakura began, still searching for the right combination of words to say. "You remind me... of someone I almost knew. Someone I loved very much." The little girl looked up from the gravel beneath their feet to await further explanation. At a loss for words, Sakura knelt in front of the little girl and offered her outstretched arms. Before she knew it, she was holding Rin close and carrying her back inside.

Two months passed and the new year greeted Suna with a repeat of last year’s weather; on came thunder showers that bathed the desert in lightning and brought joy to those who lived for the rainy season. Sakura received a letter from Sasuke that lay unopened for a week before she could finally bear to read it. Rather than an apology for his behaviour during her visit, the letter announced the birth of a healthy baby boy. “He’s got a full head of black hair already,” Sasuke bragged in his scrawling handwriting. “I bet Sarada would have as well,” he wrote, using their daughter’s name for the first time since they had the shoes made. Her eyes flooded with tears on instinct but she had to keep reading, had to read every word he’d written about their child.

I knew being a father would feel like this. The letter continued. I know you’d be the perfect mom. In some ways I’m viewing him as your child. He’s spunky just like you. Sympathy for Karin overwhelmed her. Rather than feel affection for the love of her entire childhood she mourned the loss of their daughter. Only after she stopped chasing did Sasuke take interest, only once she was unattainable did he give his own chase. Remember that I love you. Sasuke

As if in a trance she brought the letter to Gaara in his study. To her surprise, there was a city employee discussing a mundane policy change with the Kazekage as she entered the room. The conversation came to a halt as soon as Gaara laid eyes on her, reading her expression in an instant though she had swallowed back her tears for the time being.

“Thank you very much,” Gaara put an end to whatever conversation had been ensuing. “We’re done for the day.” The man across from him turned around to see what he was looking at so intently. Taking in the sight of Sakura, the man nodded and bowed out as quickly but gracefully as he could. She hoped this wouldn’t start any unfortunate rumours for Gaara, hoped it wasn’t unprofessional that she needed him as close to her as humanly possible right now. Unable to articulate what she had read, she crossed the study in a few paces and handed Sasuke’s letter to Gaara. He unfolded the letter; she sat down in the chair across from him as though they were going to have a lighthearted chat about the contents.

Gaara’s knuckles turned white as he clutched the letter harder still. After a minute of reading and rereading he rose and faced away from her, practicing what seemed to be a breathing exercise before turning around. “Do you still love him?” he questioned in an uneven voice. That hadn’t been close to the question she expected. Did he really not realize she was head over heels for him?

“Of course not!” her answer sounded more angry than she felt, transposing emotions from one situation to the next and ultimately taking out her feelings on an unsuspecting victim. “He ruined my fucking life. He left me for miscarrying and then he has the audacity to say he thinks his child with another woman is like me? Do you know what baby was like me? The one they scraped out of me without him even there.” A dam broke inside of her as she remembered the worst night of her life in full colour and detail for the first time in months. Soon she was crumpled in the chair like a used napkin, folding in on herself until Gaara approached with a firm hand on her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he admitted quickly. “I know that. I can’t believe he’d write this to you. I let my anger get the best of me,” he said earnestly. She couldn’t exactly fault him for being overly emotional. Daring to meet his eyes she was surprised to find them watery, like her own. She’d never seen Gaara cry, never heard his voice weakened like it was now. “I wish I could have saved you.”

How could she possibly respond to such a confession? She wished he’d been there too. Imagining her life with the gentle Gaara before her by her side was the push her brain needed to turn on the full waterworks again. Soon she was pulled up into a close hug, leaning into him for support for fear she would collapse to the ground without him. He anchored her to the spot as he’d done so many times before.

“I feel terrible that you’re always comforting me,” she said through tears. At this he shook his head, the hint of moisture in his eyes fading with time. He liked being there for her, apparently. For some reason it gave him joy to give her joy. Sakura supposed she felt the same way, listening to stories from his troubled childhood and rubbing his back delicately as he shook from the memories. They made a good pair. Though she’d grown up beside Sasuke, spent years of her life beside him, she understood Gaara so much better. Gaara was warm and open, a lover of children and supportive beyond measure as her wounds continually healed and burst open after leaving Konoha.

After her tears had subsided, they made a silent unanimous decision to head up to his room. His office wasn't far from the sprawling bedroom upstairs and there wasn't a soul left in the building. She was stone cold sober but stopped by the fridge along the way to grab a large bottle of sake intended for Tsunade whenever she stopped by; she could always get another one later. In a fit of post-breakdown bliss, Sakura had cooked up a plan that would almost certainly make her feel better and required some liquid courage. Gaara offered her an empty glass but she chose instead to drink straight from the bottle, channeling her mentor for strength. Her companion shrugged and instead filled the glass with water, forcing her to follow up her gulps of sake with sips of water and taking a few shots of his own. Their conversation was light and guarded after expending so much emotional energy earlier in the day. Sakura wasn’t quite drunk when she finally felt ready to say what she wanted to say, a pleasant buzz coating her brain and inhibiting the embarrassment that would ordinarily stop her cold.

“I’ve never had sex before!” she cried dramatically while slamming the sake bottle down on the table. Not missing the quirked eyebrow thrown in her direction, Sakura continued. “Well. I’ve never had sex for the sake of it. I’ve never had sex just for fun or romance.”

“I would love to have romantic and fun sex with you,” he replied in an instant, robbing her lungs of air and giving her shaking hands pause. “But not tonight, not in the state you’re in. Sometime soon,” he added when the fragment of a whine escaped her lips.

Despite his words, she found herself being led out of the seating room they’d shared together on many occasions and into the adjacent bedroom she’d never even seen. Gaara’s bedroom was massive in more ways than one. High ceilings rose far above her head and the room from end to end must’ve been as wide as two or three of the guest suites like the one she’d taken up residence in. Noticing her wandering eyes, he blushed. “I didn’t choose the decor,” he spoke softly to the ground. The bed was covered in red and gold pillows and looked hardly disturbed, sending her eyes on a search to find out where he actually slept - it appeared to be a small couch by the window with a blanket slung over the back. All the same he approached the bed and peeled back the covers, tossed half the pillows directly onto the floor and gestured for her to crawl in first. She obliged.

Once he joined her in bed she understood his intentions. He intended to actually sleep together, like, snoring and drooling rather than squirming and panting. The foregone intimacy would have upset her had he not nestled in directly behind her, pulling her fully-clothed body to his in one swift movement. His arms were strong. Gaara buried his face into the crook of her neck, sending her into a giggling fit and prompting her to turn around and look at him. Seafoam met jade for a few moments until he leaned in to kiss her forehead and she instinctively shut her eyes. The sensation of cuddling with someone felt familiar but so dissimilar to her past experiences she had trouble reconciling the two.

Sasuke loved her, but sometimes she felt it was more as a friend who could tolerate him (and had ovaries) than a romantic partner. He was rarely physically affectionate even in the privacy of their home, with the exception of the brief period of time when he was under the mistaken impression that she was having their baby. Steering her thoughts away from that line of thought, she buried her head in Gaara’s chest and rubbed away the last remnants of tears clinging to her eyelashes. Gaara was warm and smelled slightly of sandalwood, drawing her in effortlessly. It wasn’t until she felt a slight pull on her hair that she realized he was actually petting her, a foreign act of affection that felt so good she nestled in closer for more.

Being in such close proximity to Gaara was sending her heart racing and she wondered if perhaps he was open to negotiations about the whole sex thing. In all honesty she didn’t have much experience initiating; with Sasuke they’d had everything down to a schedule that required little effort or coaxing on anyone’s part. Sex was a task they both took part in for the “greater good” of furthering the Uchiha line, sex was hot and sweaty and felt good until she came then sex was increasingly tedious until pain set in. Sex was not rubbing her cheeks on Gaara’s chest, feeling a warmth grow inside her as his hands combed through her hair. It was hardly locking eyes in the pale glow of the moonlight as they lay fully clothed in bed beside each other.

Testing the waters, she broke their constant physical contact to remove her shirt. Gaara seemed a bit taken aback but made no move to stop her. It was not lost on either of them how his focus settled on her milky white breasts and the rising and falling of her chest with each breath. She could hear his breathing slow down, too, when she hooked her fingers under the hem of his shirt to encourage him to follow suit. Before she lost all of her sake-induced courage he helped her remove it and her gaze fell comfortably on his wide chest. It was no secret that he was built, it was arguably obvious even with his clothes on, but viewing each part of him separately made the whole picture even more delectable. She ran a cautious hand down his muscular arm, stopping to briefly squeeze his hand before diving into more dangerous territory to press her palm against his exposed stomach. The muscles beneath were firm and taut in a way hers had never been. She marvelled at his body in an almost clinical fashion before he interrupted her thoughts to pull her back into a hug.

“You’re a little temptress,” he said with a husky voice that put the hairs on the back of her neck up in delighted terror. They were impossibly close, her chest touching his as her nipples hardened from the direct contact. His schooled features portrayed an impenetrable fortress in spite of the words, his hands not moving to explore her body in the same way hers had. “Let’s sleep tonight. We’ll talk in the morning.”

His words made sense, even if she could feel an aching inside of her that longed to be pacified by his touch. Being pressed against him wasn’t enough to satisfy the pit of her stomach fully but as time passed quietly between them and his grip loosened in sleep she could feel the ache subside slowly. She could hardly believe Gaara was actually asleep before her when he had spoken at length about his battle with insomnia. Perhaps her presence was a bigger comfort to him than he’d be willing to admit aloud - the thought put a smirk on her face that faded only in sleep.

When they awoke, tangled together with matching hangovers and sticky bare flesh, Gaara flashed her a brilliant smile and cupped her face in his hands. “I really slept!” he exclaimed joyfully. “You have to stay here every night now,” he half-joked. Sakura was unsure if she’d ever before seen Gaara wink, but an impish side to him she had just discovered was now out in the open. Her evening companion was in a childlike state of excitement when he helped her out of bed and back into the rumpled shirt she’d discarded the night before. Head pounding, she led the charge downstairs to get some water and nourishment with Gaara hot on her heels. Neither of them spoke of the last night’s events, the creases from the sheets they shared still present on Sakura’s face. It felt too raw to vocalize, too recent and abstract to put a name on what transpired. At last over a glass of orange juice and some toast Sakura felt ready to speak.

“Did you mean it when you said we could do it soon?” she asked as though it was an enquiry about the weather and not their potentially imminent coupling. Her dining companion flushed and choked on some pulp before he could respond. Rather than speak, he cleared his throat and gave her a decisive nod. He enquired after her health, an attempt to dance around the tension that was already starting to rebuild between them. She answered noncommittally, a headache growing in the base of her skull even as she felt more emotionally sated than she had in possibly her entire life. Each movement felt more intimate than any before, the brush of their hands as they both reached for more juice sending goosebumps all the way up her arm.

“I have to spend a bit of time away,” Gaara finally said after she’d settled her stomach a bit. Sensing her disappointment, he continued quickly. “I won’t be gone more than a few days. Diplomatic stuff,” he kept the details vague in a way she wasn’t used to. It was stilted and awkward and the complete opposite of the night they’d spent together. She was kind of hoping they would be able to jump right into fucking as soon as her headache subsided, but instead he frowned and pushed away from the table. She couldn’t do much but nod. The perils of falling in love with a Kage, she supposed.

To his credit, he leaned down to kiss her forehead before sweeping out of the room unceremoniously leaving her quite unfulfilled and unsure of how to spend the afternoon. On a whim, she stopped by the orphanage a few days before her regularly scheduled visit. The children clamoured for her attention as soon as she pushed open the double doors, unperturbed by the change in schedule and instead delighted to see her. It felt empowering to greet each child with open arms. Aki was growing like a weed, much taller now than the day they’d met almost a year and a half ago but still flanked by Rin at his side. Sakura couldn’t suppress a smile as the two rushed her, eager to receive hugs and kind words that she was more than happy to give.

As things quieted down and the bell for lessons rang, Sakura became a fly on the wall and watched as a single teacher took up the task of teaching a room full of children at different levels all at once. The system had remained unchanged throughout her stay in Suna but she rarely witnessed it, as weekly visits on non-school days had been quite enough child exposure for her in the months prior. An itch began in her brain, the beginning of an idea that hadn’t yet formed fully; all at once it dawned on her that there was so much more she could be doing for these kids.

Without Gaara around to cloud her head with distracting lust and wanting, she was forced to think things through in greater detail. She’d been running away from Konoha for nearly a year and a half now, using Suna as a hideout without fully committing herself to her mission or her space there. She’d never left the lodgings Gaara gave her at the very beginning of her trip, wandered Suna like a tourist and always told herself she would someday, eventually, go back to Konoha. Things were no longer so cut and dry. Even if Gaara had never come out and said he loved her, it was clear there was something between them. Even if she’d never officially accepted the role of orphanage caretaker, it was increasingly apparent she was the closest thing they had to one. 

Excusing herself at the end of the lesson and promising to return on Sunday as usual, Sakura slipped out the door and headed directly to the closet in her room. She was on a mission within a mission, no longer visiting the orphanage out of any sense of duty to Konoha but instead as a promise to the children who had come to love her. The cash from her settlement with Sasuke lay forgotten at the bottom of a pile of haphazardly folded clothes, undisturbed since the day she received it. After a brief ponderance of how exactly she would go about executing her plan for the orphanage, she opted to first take a few bills and do a little shopping.

The market was packed as usual, the smell of fruit and incense beckoning her into one shop and then the next. It wasn't until she reached a textile merchant surrounded by all manner and colour of blankets and pillows did she stop. Red and gold didn’t suit Gaara very well; she knew green would compliment his eyes much better. She carefully selected a blanket and some pillows, envisioning them in his room with unabashed delight. Loaded with bedding, Sakura turned around to head home. Catching a whiff of sandalwood on the walk back to her lonely room, she allowed herself to buy a bit of incense before calling it a night.

When she’d first received the divorce settlement the world looked so different, her relationship with Gaara and the children hung in a tentative balance to the point that she could have returned to Konoha any moment. Now she felt far too attached to go anywhere, the visit to Konoha with Gaara still lingering in her mind from December. The idea she'd hatched in under 12 hours felt so ingenious that she had half a mind to let Gaara know before remembering he was off on some secretive business trip. Trusting that he’d tell her about it when he returned, she spent the evening relaxing with a hot bath and some sandalwood incense. It wasn't that she missed him or anything; it had only been one day after all.

Over one week and two visits to the orphanage later she was growing a bit impatient to see Gaara. It was a tad rude of him to spring some official business trip line on her and disappear for who-knows-how-long without so much as a quick fuck. Their night together had ignited something in her that she couldn’t seem to quiet, inflamed a thirst that she couldn’t quench on her own. So when her prince charming finally saw fit to enter her room one night she didn’t bother scolding him, opting instead to jump up from the sketches for the orphanage improvements she was helping design and leap directly into his open arms. Saving the interrogation for later she was delighted to feel his tongue enter her mouth before she could get her wits about her. It was happening tonight.

Despite the clear exhaustion on his face, he smirked before scooping her up in his arms and charging out of her room, up the stairs and into his chambers. She could hardly shriek before he was pouring her onto the bed, undressing her with an unparalleled ferocity. She squirmed beneath him, trying desperately to aid him in removing her clothes while simultaneously reaching for his in vain. Her heart was racing so loudly she was briefly concerned he could hear it thump right out of her chest but he seemed too preoccupied with the buttons on her blouse to hear much of anything.

Finally her top was shed followed quickly by her bottoms and shortly thereafter his clothes seemed to melt off. Fully exposed, thrown on the bed beneath him, she felt an electricity crackle through her begging to pull him closer. Wordlessly he closed the distance between them, pressing kisses along her cheek and neck before lowering his head to bypass her breasts and graze his lips along her ribcage. It was satisfying and unsatisfying all the same, tantalizing in a way she’d never experienced before. He was teasing her. She moved her hands to cover her breasts, an attempt at being coy. It felt like a less-clumsy teenage love affair.

“Sorry I was gone longer than expected,” he spoke the first words they’d shared that day with a hoarse voice, lips ghosting over her left hand before he removed it with his own. “Politics and all that.” It didn’t matter what he said at that point: she was enraptured by his touch. In a single needy motion she yanked his shoulders down to force his attention back on her body and hopefully convey it was quite alright he’d disappeared from her life for over a week with minimal warning. As long as his tongue kept licking circles around her breasts he could fuck off for as long as he wanted afterwards. Next time he could take her with him, maybe.

The familiar curling heat in the pit of her stomach returned as she reached up to explore his body. It was still light outside and she could just barely see the sheen of sweat on his abdomen. When her hand made contact to rub it away he groaned, prompting more fingertips ghosting his skin until her fingers had wrapped around his fully-hard member and he was practically rutting into her. He was growing sloppy at his task of licking and sucking at her flesh and finally collapsed against her, panting into her neck and pressing his dick firmly into her thigh.

“Is this okay?” his voice came quietly as he buried his face in her neck, unwilling to break the contact but ever the gentleman. She gave an enthusiastic reply, not sure which part of it she was meant to be protesting, which put him back to work exploring the lower half of her body. Each touch burned as he ran his hands down her thighs and took in the sight of her beneath him. She felt embarrassment creep in as his stare lingered a bit longer than she’d like, prompting the pinkette to egg him on a bit.

“I’m ready,” she explained, pressing a finger into herself and coming out soaked to demonstrate. “But I think we might need to do some stretching to take you,” she could hardly get out the words before Gaara smirked and moved her hand out of the way. He dipped one finger followed quickly by another into her folds, face lighting up as she wriggled in pleasure. It had been so long since anyone had touched her down there; after some time it hadn’t even been necessary to do much foreplay with Sasuke. For awhile her ex had been fascinated with the idea that her entrance had taken his shape, was so enthralled by the idea that she had been molded to fit him that they’d hardly waited for her to get wet before he would plunge in. This was nothing like that; had she not been so preoccupied by her arousal, she might have kicked herself for thinking of that man at a time like this.

A third finger below distracted her from disparaging herself any further. Gaara was testing the waters with each thrust, monitoring the arch of her back and not hiding the look of fascination he gave her through lust-lidded eyes. It didn’t take much of his encouraging exploration of her insides before she felt beyond ready to take him in. She mustered up the magic words, something to the effect of “please, Gaara, just fuck me,” prompting him to pause. His desire for consent was sweet but frustrating in her current state; he lined himself up at her entrance and asked if she was really ready before finally filling her to the brim.

The hot warmth in her stomach leapt right up to her throat where a guttural moan had been hiding. The noise shocked them both, eliciting a chuckle from her bedmate before he began pushing into her with gusto. After a minute of thrusting he grew more confident, drawing their bodies together while keeping up the pace all the same. A short whisper in her right ear forced out a gasp from her already taxed lungs. “You feel so good,” he managed to pant directly in her ear. “Unbelievably good,” the tone of his voice meant more than any words he continued to speak. She was being carried higher than she’d ever been, felt the crescendo rising within her as her orgasm grew closer.

Each movement was soon punctuated by a short gasp, an attempt to fill her lungs with air as her breath was continually taken away. “You’re mine,” he moaned low and gravelly into her ear. It was hot and wet and exactly what she needed to be pushed over the edge. Throwing a hand to her clitoris, she began to thrust back at him with a need to be filled while riding out the orgasm overtaking her. Gaara gave as good as he got, sucking on a spot on her neck just below her ear and pounding into her as she shook. As her orgasm began to recede she steeled herself to spend the next few minutes feigning pleasure and staring up at the high ceilings above them. Instead Gaara pulled out and lay beside her, still fully erect and covered in her slick.

“You can keep going, you know,” Sakura said through measured breaths. Air had at last returned to her lungs and she could hardly hold back surprise at her lover’s actions. He looked over with a soft smile, hand returning to stroke his member. Just stay like this, he whispered before placing his other hand on her breast. Rather than let him get off on his own, she plastered her body to his side and trailed a finger down his abdomen, replacing his hand with her own and pumping as fast as she could. Despite the whole teen-marriage thing she was rather inexperienced with genitalia that wasn’t her own and hoped her performance was satisfactory. Moments later white ribbons of cum coated her arm and his stomach, signalling a job well done. He made no immediate movement to clean either of them up, so she opted to curl into him and bask in the post-orgasm aura around them.

Though it was foolish and unfair to continually compare them, Gaara’s arm wrapped around her shoulders was already more post-sex cuddling than Sasuke had indulged her in. “I feel like I just lost my virginity,” she said more to herself than her companion. He chuckled.

“I guess that means it was good?” he enquired with more than a hint of curiosity. She nodded vigorously into his armpit, trying to think of the right words to convey exactly how much fun she’d had. Before she could vocally reassure him he interrupted her train of thought. “I really did lose mine.”

No way. She couldn’t hide her disbelief, pulling back from him to read his expression. “Really?” she finally asked. The nod he gave in reply confirmed it beyond a doubt. She’d taken the Kazekage’s virginity. Badass. Drawing back from him was undesirable, though, so she quickly nestled back in beside him. At some point he suggested a shower, dragging her along with him to the attached bathroom that was much nicer than any she’d been in before. They spent the evening exploring each other further, basking in silence punctuated only by gasps and moans from both sides.

When the sun lit up the room the following morning, she cracked an eye and found Gaara still asleep beside her. Desperate for warmth as the earth had yet to benefit from the sun's rays, she burrowed right up to his side and woke him in the process. Gaara gave her a sleepy smile. “Good morning beautiful,” he rasped, voice gruff from the excess of the previous night. She would have rolled her eyes were she not so head over heels for this man. “What were you working on when I came home yesterday?”

She didn’t know he’d noticed. It wasn’t exactly like she wanted to hide her project from him, but she didn’t know how to explain without forcing him to be involved. Unable to think of a lie, Sakura briefed him about the divorce settlement she’d been holding onto for an entire year and the way she hoped to use it. He was over the moon with the idea, dressing quickly to go review the plans she was drawing for an extension to the building. Sakura followed suit, pulling on clothes and gasping when he picked her up and lifted her in the air yet again like a fucking princess. It was a ridiculous fairy tale every day with this man. When he finally set her down they raced to her room, him poring over the blueprints with her tentatively explaining the plan. With the funds from the settlement they could increase the size and the staff of the orphanage, take in more children full-time and offer better services to the ones already there. It was an exciting prospect, one Gaara didn’t hide his giddiness over. Sakura fell a little more in love with him each moment.

Before they could go their separate ways for the day, Sakura pulled the linens she'd bought for his room out of her small closet and pressed them into his arms. "I know you weren't a big fan of your current decor," she explained to his enquiring eyes. "I think this suits you better!" The stack of bedding did look perfect in his arms, especially accompanied by the grin he gave her. With a peck on the lips, they both headed off for the day.

The renovations began once the rainy season had passed. Sakura turned 22, Boruto had his first birthday, and at last spring turned to a hot and dry summer. This year she was prepared to be an aunt, sending Boruto a care package he wouldn’t remember but she’d cherish forever - baby clothes she’d finally been brave enough to buy. 

Construction at the orphanage took place primarily in the morning before things got too hot to work. Everything was coming together nicely as Sakura’s time was increasingly spent with the children at the orphanage rather than the harshly lit halls of Suna’s hospital. It was no longer painful to spend time surrounded by the affection of a multitude of kids. Sakura noted with relief that she didn’t feel the need to run away after each visit, didn’t need to excuse herself each time a challenging situation posed itself. It helped to have Gaara at her side, but she did okay on her own now too.

It was August when the children started asking when she was going to marry the Kazekage. Sakura couldn’t be sure who had started the rumour, but she had her suspicions it was a little girl with black pigtails and a snot-nosed friend outgrowing all his hand-me-downs at an alarming rate. She smiled and asked them to please not asked the Kage himself these questions, though it was bound to happen eventually.

He stood close to her when they toured the unfinished new wing. He had dinner with her regularly. They had sex more nights than they didn’t, and she didn’t bother sleeping in her room anymore. Even when he had diplomatic visits to faraway lands she slept in his bed, surrounded by his scent and the bedding she'd given him as comfort. Over time the amount of things related to her in his room grew: her toiletries now belonged in his bathroom, her clothes began to fill his closet. In spite of this, with all the steps they’d taken to grow closer, neither of them had said the three most important words.

Sakura felt the need to protect herself. It was fine to sleep together and spend every waking moment together. It was just dandy to take walks in the evening and brush their teeth together in the morning and for her to check in on him in the afternoon to make sure he remembered to eat lunch. But saying “I love you” would make things concrete, would mean that if he grew tired of her she would have no mental defense. Imagine if Gaara wanted a child eventually? He was the Kazekage after all, and she imagined he’d want an heir of his own sometime. She remembered back to one of their earlier conversations, how he said he’d never want to raise a child the way he was raised. Now that he saw it was possible to raise a happy child in a loving home thanks to Naruto and Hinata, would he expect someone to provide that?

While it wasn’t a sure thing that she could never conceive, they weren’t exactly being safe with their escapades and she didn’t feel pregnant. Investing in tests felt more sad than anything, as though she was hopeful she would have a child when she wasn’t even married or technically in a relationship. Whenever Gaara left for too long she got a bit funny, unable to decide what the hell it was she wanted exactly. She didn’t want to be sitting at home praying for a child so she could have a piece of the man she loved once again. She couldn’t bear to fantasize about a little Gaara running around in the way she’d dreamed of with Sasuke. Saying anything to that effect out loud would certainly ruin the delicate balance they’d worked out over time. Rather than drown in her thoughts she began to devote more time to training the new staff at the orphanage, taking an even larger role than she'd ever imagined would be possible at the start.

It was only as the fall of her second year in Suna began that she dared to question Gaara’s intentions. The delicate balance they’d forged grew more fragile as he left for his next trip soon after returning from the previous one. Surrounding herself with children could only satisfy so many of her needs, a fact she was keen to remind Gaara of just as soon as he got his ass back in Suna. She could only play the good wife while not actually being anyone’s wife for so long. When he did return, a week after he left, her bedroom was the first place he went. She looked up from the book in her lap to glare at him, pushing down the desire to pull him close with every fiber of her being.

“What’s wrong?” he dared to ask when she finally set the book aside. Big mistake. In the months preceding she’d gotten some of her old feistiness back, a blessing and a curse for them both.

“What’s wrong? What’s wrong with treating me like a fucking mistress you only see when you want to get your dick wet?” the words were more cruel and a good deal more crude than she intended. Of course she wasn’t a mistress - even that would be a title, which he hadn’t deigned to give her. Gaara looked positively mystified.

“Sakura,” he crossed the room more swiftly than she anticipated, catching her arm in his hand before she could retreat further away. The small guest room she’d holed up in as an abstract protest left much less room to hide than his bedchambers. “Of course you’re not a mistress.” The way he said it made it believable, the touch of his fingers on her side gentle even as she pulled away.

“You’ve never invited me on any of your trips,” she huffed as he joined her on the cramped twin bed, seated shoulder to shoulder even as she drew her body inwards to become smaller. It wasn’t the statement she wanted to make; she wanted to force him to admit he loved her, wanted to draw out those three words from him by any means necessary. Instead she focused on the trips. “And you never even used to go on so many!”

Gaara flinched at her last declaration, implying she’d hit a nerve. He took his time replying, mouthing out a few words before giving voice to his explanation. “I have to spend time away,” his right hand gripped his knee with white knuckles as if to anchor it in place. “Or I might do something dramatic.”

“Why don’t you do something dramatic then?” Sakura demanded with a pout, looking anywhere other than the man beside her. Focusing on the succulents on the windowsill, she tried her hardest to pretend they didn’t make her heart race. Everything in her old room reminded her of Gaara, completely defeating the point of sleeping somewhere other than his room.

“You aren’t interested in a relationship, Sakura,” Gaara finally said. That was news to her. “You told me you could never love again!” he nearly shouted, and she supposed she had: a long time ago. Like, a really long time ago. God damn it. He’d been circling around her cautiously, afraid to make contact while she silently begged for his affection. Eager to forgive him and be forgiven herself, she crashed headlong into his arms before remembering an important part of their reconciliation.

“I was wrong. I love you,” the sentiment spilled out of her effortlessly. His mouth opened to echo her words but she gathered her strength and covered it with both hands before he said something he couldn’t take back. “When you leave I feel empty, and it’s killing me to live in this relationship grey area. But I don’t know if I can ever have a child. And I don’t want to tie you down with that. It’s better if we end things entirely than carry on like this.”

The grin he had on once she removed her hands from his mouth was completely inappropriate for the situation. Until he spoke, she had half a mind to slap him. “Thought you knew this already,” the grin stayed put despite her glowering. “But we already have kids. Probably 30 or more at this point.”

“That’s true,” she admitted, all the words she could manage in light of this revelation. Over the last two years they had both raised a lot of children, and would continue to for the foreseeable future. When she wasn’t in agony, spending time with the children was the highlight of her week. An ordinarily stoic man, Gaara made up for her silence with more words of his own while slowly enveloping her body with his.

“I love you,” he said as her hands drifted down from his face and lost themselves in her own lap. “When you’re empty, let me fill you up with laughter or happiness or maybe some good old-fashioned sex,” Gaara stopped to pull her face towards his. The kiss was sloppy, their mouths slightly off-center as Sakura was abruptly pulled out of her thoughts. “If you’re feeling stagnant I will literally move the dunes of sand around us just for a chance to see you smile. I love you,” at this he rose only to lower himself again, on one knee in front of her.

“You are not,” Sakura mouthed, unsure if the words she intended to say actually manifested or were merely very powerful thoughts. He carried on as though she hadn’t spoken at all, producing a beautiful ring crowned with a gathering of magnificent emeralds as he knelt before her.

“I am. Will you marry me?” his eyes pleaded silently as though he didn’t know what her answer would be. How long had he been carrying this ring, designed perfectly for her, around with him? How many missions had he taken on, burdened by a love that may never have come to fruition? The only thought she spared to Sasuke in that moment was to thank the universe she wasn’t thinking about him at all.

“Of course I will!” she nearly shouted with disregard for the time or the place or any sort of propriety. Gingerly plucking the ring from his hand, she found it fit her perfectly as he rose and nearly tackled her with a hug. She’d never even had a ring with Sasuke, not that it mattered much. The idea of him selecting this ring to match her eyes, guessing her ring size flawlessly, meant much more than the thing itself. The evening was spent much like any other with Gaara home, a passionate sort of lovemaking viewed now through a lens of love that filled her heart to the brim.

Discussions of the wedding were pushed back until the orphanage upgrades were complete. There was a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the carefully-selected new staff members as well as a few veterans whose tenure surpassed Sakura’s. The city buzzed with excitement for the grand re-opening as well as the wedding of their beloved leader soon to follow. After he cut the ribbon and gave a magnificent speech about unity and ensuring each and every citizen of Suna had enough to eat and a place to sleep, the two of them slipped inside to inspect the finished work. 

As soon as they entered Sakura became aware things were not quite as she’d planned. Where there should have been an empty wall instead was a pop-out glass display housing a familiar pair of baby shoes. Hand thrown to her mouth, not a sound escaped as she broke away from Gaara to read the hand-carved plaque directly below Sarada’s tiny shoes. 

**Dedicated to every child who made it through these doors, and all those that did not. This is your home: you will always be welcome here.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all folks! I started work on this in early 2018 and have been plugging away at it on occasion ever since. The ending was difficult and I could've continued to edit it for an year or more, lol. I really appreciate all of the comments and feedback from everyone, you kept me at it and made sure I posted the last chapter today. Thank you for reading and thank you for reviewing! :)


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